Fanfic /
The Great Alicorn Hunt

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The story begins at the start of the season 3 finale and contains a second divergence from canon. Instead of only Twilight ascending, all of the Mane Six become alicorns. Celestia and Luna give the group a new mission: to track down other alicorns that they believe are manifesting all over Equestria, as part of a grand plan to bring immortality to the entire population.

By the way, Luna thinks it might be a good idea if they focused first on finding an alicorn stallion or two...

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It is still ongoing, though it has slowed down from its earlier pace.

Can be found here; it used to be on FIMFiction, but the author pulled all his stories out due to disagreements with the moderators.

Tropes:

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A

Accusation Fic: Though not as prominent as in the previous story, this story continues to call out the actions of many of the characters in canon: Applejack failing to stop the bullying, Celestia's manipulative tendencies by Sunset Shimmer of all ponies and the total failure of the Wonderbolts to act in dire situations.

In Chapter 29, Jasper and Trixie spent the past year as fugitives. Sheriff Brass, wanting to cover up his corrupt actions, conspired with his cronies at Filli Terram to capture them and bring them back to Promise, by calling every law enforcement agency possible, some of them staffed by Filli Terram, and claiming them to be horrible criminals. It is a small wonder that when Sunset Shimmer finds them (having discovered their ascension), they are living in fear of their lives, paranoid, and hidden behind countless illusion spells.

In chapter 40, zombies attack the Maredi Gras parade and in the confusion, Sweetie and Mudpuppy are kidnapped by Cotton Mouth, the stallion responsible for Twig's deformities and the deaths of all of Mudpuppy and Twig's would have been age-mates.

Chapter 50 features the Crownbreakers planning to destroy the Thunderdome, during a Wonderbolts performance, with a crowd made up of at least half flightless patrons, many of whom are children. To rub salt in the wound, several of the flightless patrons are handicapped children.

At one point, a Kappa tries to make a meal out of a couple, made worse by the fact that the mare in question is pregnant. Not helped by the fact that kappas in mythology are known to hunt and feed on human children regularly.

The Windy City Children's Hospital considers the idea of helping cure or at least improve the conditions of their handicapped patients to be a hate crime. Many readers found the concept unnerving and one reader who was a medical professional admitted to outright disgust at their blatant disregard for not just their patients' well-being but the code of ethics that govern the medical profession. And this is something that is actually happening in real life.

Aesop Amnesia: Averted at the start. After the mass Alicorn-Ascension of the Mane Six, Twilight thinks Celestia is still being a secretive and manipulative chessmaster. Then Celestia says "let me explain" and she does. She even opens up a Q&A in case she missed something. Also, this plan was set in motion before the Aesop of the previous story (or rather, they knew such an event would happen eventually and were patiently waiting for it).

Age Without Youth: Lord Malifec has lived for centuries, but he doesn't have any self-healing capacity, resulting in a frail body that needs to be patched up with pieces of other ponies.

The Ahnold: Pinkie Pie's guards, former bouncers, intentionally act like this. The sight of them sends Luna to a series of cold showers and a raid on the ship's stockpile of double fudge ripple ice cream - somehow eating all of the fudge ripple (Not the fudge ripple ice cream; just the fudge ripple).

Ain't Too Proud to Beg: After being confronted by an alicorn princess, (Sunset Shimmer) Trixie attempts to flee. Finding her escape route blocked, she throws herself at the princess's feet and begs (In the hammiest way possible) for mercy. On Jasper's behalf, if not her own.

Alas, Poor Villain: Cotton Mouth. Dear Lord, COTTON MOUTH. First, his Vitality Elixir malfunctioned, warping his body after it had caused all the stillbirths and deformities in the Bayou, then he hid in the Bayou trying to find answers while having his reputation ruined by his mistake... when he was reintroduced in chapter 41, he seemed to be really out of it and didn't realize how much he's fallen, and acts like if perfecting his elixir will absolve him of his guilt from killing the rest of Mudpuppy's and Twig's age mates... and then it turns out he is very aware of how badly he screwed up if in denial, got himself geased by a lich, and was cursed to have his body mutate out of control should his master die. He was suffering so much in the end that he asked Princess Luna for a Mercy Kill.

Pinkie's pinkie powers are due to the ability to perceive and act in more dimensions than most people. In addition to being able to move through more spatial dimensions than most (which allows her to do things like lean through a magic mirror to hug someone on the other side, hundreds of miles away), she can see forward in time to a limited degree and perceive probability.

The Uncharted spell, which alters the geometries of the affected area so that it's impossible to enter or exit through any direction except one.

Building off of Parting Words, with the main divergence coming when all of the Mane Six ascend instead of just Twilight.

None of the Equestria Girls films happen, as Sunset is captured when she first infiltrates the Crystal Empire, and subsequently talked into a HeelFace Turn by Celestia. This means Equestrian Magic is never introduced to the human world, the Dazzlings stay in their mostly depowered, state etc.

At some point off-screen, Starlight Glimmer was overthrown as leader of the Equality cult, and later rescued from it by Sunburst. Twilight reveals that they're now engaged and working on magical research together.

Rarity's Radiant Guard is almost entirely made up of mares. They double as Ladies of War, though she apparently took them mostly so she could use them all as models for her dresses.

Celestia's castle staff includes a large number of mares who are also members of her Day Guard, trained in plain-clothes security and just as effective in combat as the stallions. Many of them transfer to the Radiant Guard.

Celestia asks this of Sunset Shimmer in Chapter 18 before revealing her reasons for the Pancaea, as Shimmer didn't know what Celestia's true plan was. Interestingly, Sunset Shimmer does have sort of an answer to the trope question: Sunset Shimmer admits she didn't really have a plan on what she was planning to do after becoming a princess, but she says that well, if she was a princess, she'd have plenty of opportunity to figure it out. Opportunity that Celestia denied her.

Surprisingly, Mudpuppy gets some of this once she learns that she's a princess in chapter 27.

In chapter 50, Mach One is convinced that Celestia hasn't answered this question for all the points between starting the "Ascend everybody scheme" and its conclusion.

The Aristocrats: The infamous punchline becomes weaponized when Sweetie Belle uses it to escape from the lich Malifec and Cotton Mouth. When Sweetie's uncle taught it to her (only the punchline; she never heard the setup), her parents spanked her and threw him out of the house.

Flute: Bu— but why? What do you have against ponies who just want to keep their blood lines pure? Celestia: You silly, silly ponies. You despise innocent ponies for having a mixed heritage. What do you suppose MY parentage was?

Mach looked down at her for a minute; then his expression changed. Huh. Guess you are a princess fangirl, aren't you, he said after a moment. Okay, Guys. Let's list off their crimes. These guys are makin' a ruckus in our town." They're saying mean things about ponies, Softy said, looking hurt on the absent princesses' behalf. They busted up our race! Crackerjack said, stamping a hoof. And they smell bad, Bowser said, wrinkling his nose. On purpose. He'd passed by a couple of the patchouli-drenched protesters on the way. The others snorted and snickered. —And the most heinous crime of all, Bananas Foster said, his voice all but rolling in sarcasm, They're hipsters, and hipsters suck.

Artificial Limbs: Mach One gains a phantom wing from his ascension, to allow him to fly while he waits for his real wing to regenerate.

Author Filibuster: The Windy City arc is an extended rant against SJW's, specifically the anti-ableism crowd infesting medicine.

Awesomeness by Analysis: Apple Bloom only needs a brief explanation (and sometimes, not even that) and a fast look at any machine to immediately understand how it works.

Axes flash, broadsword swing, Shining armor's piercing ring Horses run with polished shield, Fight Those Bastards till They Yield Midnight mare and blood red roan, Fight to Keep this Land Your Own Sound the horn and call the cry— HOW MANY OF THEM CAN WE MAKE DIE?!

Badass Bureaucrat: Harshwhinny. No sooner have Scootaloo and the Nobody's Fools been arrested then she has them fully pardoned and released.

"The Nobody's Fools are walking out of here, and they're walking out of here with a clean slate. You give me even a moment's hassle on releasing these children and I will make you think you have your man-tackle in a pencil sharpener. I'm from the government, Mister Mayor, and I eat my own kind.

Badass Crew: The Nobody's Fools are infamous for their pranks and never getting caught. In ch 50 they are the first to start rescuing people.

Badass in a Nice Suit: Rarity's royal guard contingent, "The Radiant Guard" are some of the best dressed ponies in all of Equestria. They are also "Black Flag Specialist" plainclothes security. Rarity's hoofmaidens could fold Big Mac into a small box without breaking a sweat.

Bag of Kidnapping: Zombies and kappas ambush the Maredi Gras parade and they carry off Mudpuppy and Sweetie Belle in a burlap sack.

Bait-and-Switch: After the Malfunziona statue, you'd forgive most readers for thinking that it'd come to life (even after AJ's magic confirms it really is just a statue, and not a real Draconequus). Instead, he emerges from a cylinder in a secret compartment of a statue of Bold Lion. This is intentional on Bold Lion's part: he hid Malfunziona in the Bold Lion statue (with instructions that said statue be placed over his grave, where it would presumably be left untouched out of respect), and made the Malfunziona statue to fool anypony wishing to use the Draconequus' power for their own nefarious affairs.

Bee Bee Gun: Apple Bloom MacGyvers the twittermite vacuum cannon out of random broken machine parts. Then she puts it in reverse to send them all up a lessor draconequus' nose.

Before meeting Fluttershy's folks, her friends take bets on which one will be "the loud one". (Dash, knowing the answer, abstains.) Babs wins the pot by correctly guessing that the whole family acts just like Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash loses a bet to Spike over which one of the Mane Six will be the first to find another Alicorn.

When Flim and Flam learn of the Crusaders' ascension, they start taking bets on what disaster the trio will cause next and where. They have to turn down a wager on a zombie attack because it's already happened.

Big-Bad Ensemble: So far, there have been multiple major threats, all in one specific area (since the mere presence of the new alicorns tend to upend their plans)- Applejack, Apple Bloom and Babs have gone up against Malfunziona, Sweetie Belle and Mudpuppy encountered Lord Malifec, and Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo and Mach One have been dealing with Fussbudget and the Crownbreaker terrorists.

The entire Nobody's Fools has had this drummed into their heads; they are their brother's keepers, no questions asked. Bonus to Mach, who dives after a free-falling Scootaloo and is perfectly okay with dying as long as he can save her.

When Scootaloo is free-falling, Dash casts her first proper spell to save her.

Big "NO!": Rarity's horn drags her through and out of Neigh Orleans. When she remembers that Neigh Orleans is surrounded by swamp — and she really doesn't want to get dragged through a swamp — she wails "No. No! NOOOOOOO!!" as she gets dragged through the swamp anyway.

The Nobody's Fools are all ponies (and a zebra/donkey, and a griffin) that don't fit in normal pony society; they are all close friends.

Rainbow Dash and Prince Ajax (from griffin's royalty) are both athletic, adventurous types from unsophisticated backgrounds (Ajax and his father had been wilderness guides and explorers) who had been suddenly raised to heights of prominence that they truthfully weren't sure they were quite ready for. They hit on quickly.

Bizarre Taste in Food: Discord eats seven hors d'oeuvres trays at the Coronation Gala. Not the hors d'oeuvres themselves, just the trays. (He complains that they weren't very filling because they were made of sterling silver.)

Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Pinkie's mother has a special cupcake recipe - dark chocolate with Tabasco frosting. One bite sends Twilight racing to the nearest ice cream parlor, where she eats her way through an entire tub of vanilla for relief.

The side effects of Cotton Mouth using his "Vitality Elixir" on himself, that only emerged after he'd given it to several pregnant mares, most of whom miscarried. He started growing a third eye in the middle of his cheek, a second horn, and stumpy wings, and one of his legs withered away.

The lich Malifec is even worse off. He's immortal, but he doesn't heal, forcing him to spend more and more of his power holding his decaying body together. He and Cotton Mouth developed a way to reduce living ponies to protoplasm to undo some of the effects of being undead, albeit temporarily, and he hopes to use Mudpuppy's essence to create a new indestructible body.

Cotton Mouth gets the worst of it in the end. Malifec's power is the only thing keeping the effects of the elixir under control; once he dies, Cotton Mouth's body starts to mutate even more horribly at an accelerated rate. Princess Luna can do nothing for him except grant his request for a Mercy Kill.

A fairly mundane but still horrible example: One of Mach One's wings failed to develop normally and had to be amputated. He was just a FOAL when it happened, and never had the chance to learn to fly. When he becomes an Alicorn, he gains a phantom magical wing that manifests itself whenever he concentrates on its feeling. A real one has begun to grow in, but it'll be a very slow process.

Born in the Wrong Century: As Discord points out, Malfunziona, whose power grows depending on how complicated the machine he breaks is, was active during a time were the most complex devices where wheels and farming tools and so could hardly ever become more than a minor nuisance. Cut forward several centuries after being sealed where he finds himself surrounded by so much advanced machinery that he could become more powerful than Discord or Celestia in just an hour.

Broken Pedestal: In chapter 13, the Wonderbolts lose significant respect for Rainbow Dash when they think she bought her way onto the throne. After Spitfire chews her out in chapter 15, Rainbow Dash's pedestal quickly crumbles. Thankfully, both are rebuilt in the next chapter after a nice, long talk.

The Bully: Pennyworth and his two surprisingly thuggish companions, Bullhorn and Air Drop, along with Marzipan, Ruby Drop, and Ivy, are snobs who berate ponies they consider to be lesser then them (most ponies) and go as far as forcing "the diaper dance" on them.

Discord takes a lot of comedic abuse. He forgets that Fluttershy now being an Alicorn supercharges The Stare, getting his eyes blown out for his trouble. He suffers the most from the plunderseed's vines, ending up with thorns in a lot of painful places. Also, in this universe his riddle to trick the Mane Six into the maze never worked in the first place thanks to Twilight's logic.

Orange Roughy, one of Fluttershy's guards, gets this role when he volunteers to give Breezy some fighting lessons. Not knowing Breezy's background, he tells the colt to ditch his training shoes and take his best shot. Breezy's first punch lays him out cold and sends him to the dentist to get his teeth fixed.

Daring Do starts off this way when she first tries to force open the mystery box from the Tree of Harmony. She tells Celestia about her lock picks being shattered, taking an electric shock that nearly blew the fillings out of her teeth, and breaking a 50-pound sledgehammer on the box out of frustration.

Vertical File, a Canterlot bureaucrat, gets a taste in Chapter 32. Spike fire-mails the huge backlog of paperwork on Flash Sentry's desk to keep Twilight from seeing it and freaking out. The whole lot re-materializes in Celestia's throne room and falls directly on Vertical's head, prompting him to re-think his stand against a proposal to cut down on government paperwork.

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This also serves as a bit of a callback to the prequel, where Celestia wondered where the attitude of "Fighting back makes you just as bad as the bullies" comes from. Here, we see one source of where this attitude comes from.

Calling the Old Man Out: Bananas Foster does this to his parents, pointing out that all they ever treated him as was the successor to the family fruit business, and if they'd ever tried getting to know him as a person, they'd have realized that he was so unsuited for the business world that he wasn't fit to run a lemonade stand - literally, he found that out through first person experience.

Can't Believe I Said That: In chapter 34, Zephyr orders one of his men, regarding a defensive shield, to "Set that field to squirrel-only, and I cannot believe I just said that."

Cassandra Truth: None of the bullies believe it when the CMC warn them they're related to Alicorn princesses.

Apple Bloom is so used to Applejack ignoring her claims about being bullied this way that she doesn't expect her to act any differently now, even after the events of Parting Words.

Mach One finds it hard to believe that Mayor Fussbudget wasn't in cahoots with the Crownbreakers.

Dapper Blue's exploding chili pepper that was used to kill a Kappa in the bayou could have easily been a one shot gag...

One of AJ's Roughnecks was telling stories about vampire fruits/gourds. Cut to chapter 58...

The giant scissors that Babs uses to defeat the giant hair monster at the trade show come in handy later on, when she cuts the rigging and gas envelope of a blimp full of Diamond Dog pirates.

Clueless Chick Magnet: Bishi/Breezy Shy, Fluttershy's little brother. All of the CMC and Babs Seed are crushing badly on him, yet he's too shy to be anything but oblivious to their crush.

Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Everything relating to the Mane Six princesses are color-coded according to their coat color, from their elements up to their airships.

Combat Pragmatist: Most members of Rarity's Radiant Guard are "Black Flag specialists" - trained in plainclothes security work. Since they don't openly carry armor or weapons when on duty as the standard Royal Guards do, they have to be ready to take out targets hard, fast, and if need be, permanently.

Comically Missing the Point: During a rant by Mach One about how there are social protest groups that will complain about just about anything and stupid politicians will pass laws to make said people happy, Rainbow Dash gets sidetracked by the fact that Mayor Fussbudget had outlawed the sale of jumbo hay-burgers in Windy City.

Could Say It, But...: Upon being ordered to stop trying to cure long-lasting disabilities because that might cause her patients to stop fitting in with the handicapped community, Doctor Hospice Care does this while discussing the root cause of Scootaloo's inability to fly with Rainbow Dash. He could tell her the names of several out-of-town specialists, along with their clinics and contact numbers, and he might know a couple of helpful therapies, but he's not going to say anything, because it is against policy *wink*.

Corrupt Hick: Sheriff Brass, an Earth Pony supremacist who basically abandoned a filly and a colt to die, just for the crime of being unicorns. He blackmailed Trixie into finding them, and when Trixie tried to adopt the colt (Jasper), Brass tried to lock her up to cover up his crime, and then later tried to charge both of them with impersonating royalty. It eventually backfired on him because by that time, Trixie and Jasper actually were royalty, having triggered their own ascension.

Corrupt Politician: Mayor Fussbudget of the Windy City is shown to be an underhanded, amoral, vote-grubber who bamboozles voters into keeping him in office just so he can abuse his power for petty grudges and luxuries.

Twilight designs the group's communicator compacts to be as indestructible as she can make them. They get put to the test right away when Apple Bloom drops hers on a stone floor, then later when Rarity briefly loses hers while being dragged through the Neigh Orleans swamps. Celestia later modifies hers to hang around her neck and act as a video camera.

Twilight also adds an enchantment to the Element necklaces and her tiara, so that they'll teleport back to their wearers if they get more than ten feet away.

Breezy Shy brings his martial-arts training shoes to the Junior Gala just in case he has to defend himself. When the bullies from Babs' school start to threaten the Crusaders, he changes into those shoes and handily beats the stuffing out of their leader.

Rarity somehow manages to hide 15 stilettos and a garrote in a little black dress she makes for one of the mares in her security detail. Her ship contains not only a boutique so she can keep selling her fashion designs (under an alias), but a huge range of specialized workshops and facilities for the comfort of passengers and crew.

Twilight and Flash Sentry have opposing definitions of the term. For Twilight, it means everything is punched into an itemized checklist, while for Flash, his preparation is in his lack of preparation so he can react immediately to new conditions.

Whoever created the Tree of Harmony did it to help maintain harmony, and anything it creates has a lot of safety measures.

When Twilight, Flash, and Spike set out for Hollow Shades in Chapter 33, Flash ditches most of Twilight's gear in favor of weapons and items they can use against the supernatural creatures rumored to live in the area - including spices and herbs Spike can use for cooking. He even packs a repeating crossbow and hides a retractable blade under his athletic jersey.

Cutting the Knot: Celestia decides that rather than deal with whatever Secret Test of Character is required to open the box from the Tree of Harmony, she'll just have Daring Do (who has a history of this) find a way to force it open.

Cynicism Catalyst: Mach One, leader of the Nobody's Fools, has little love for the Equestrian government and the princesses due to the many, MANY faults he sees in their society. This has many sources but the first and most prominent is that no one has a cure for his missing wing.

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Deadly Dodging: Malfunziona stands in front of a wall, goads Apple Bloom's griffin guard into charging him, then dodges to make the griffin guard smack into the wall behind him. The griffin is knocked out.

Deadly Rotary Fan: Discussed and Averted in chapter 38 when three batponies find themselves dealing with a runaway airplane.

"What do we do? We can't land this thing!!" Moonpenny shrieked over the redlining motor. "It'll just lawnmower its way down the Midway!"

Didn't See That Coming: Played for Drama when zombies and kappas launched a surprise ambush to kidnap Mudpuppy and Sweetie Belle. The guards did their best and apologized for being caught unprepared. Princess Luna tells them that they have nothing to be sorry for because they cannot predict the unpredictable, by definition.

Post-ascension Sunset comes to the conclusion that her "brilliant" plan to ascend herself (The plot of Equestria Girls) was really stupid. If it had worked, she would have either been outnumbered five to one against the other Element Bearers (or worse if Celestia and Luna got involved) if she tried to conquer Equestria, or she would have gotten herself bombed off the map if she tried to conquer Earth.

At the inventor expo, one of the ponies presents a super glue that can stick to any kind of material. When Apple Bloom asks how anypony can get it out of the bottle to use it, the inventor doesn't have an answer.note Most superglue formulations start to react and set up only when exposed to moisture in the air. As long as the stuff is processed and stored under a completely dry atmosphere, it'll flow.

Given that the author is known to be a fan of Dungeons & Dragons, this may be a Shout-Out to Sovereign Glue, a minor magic item that sticks to everything except the equally magical Salve of Slipperiness. The D&D description specifically notes that an 8-oz bottle of Sovereign Glue actually contains seven ounces of glue and one ounce of Salve of Slipperiness, which coats the inside of the bottle and keeps the glue from sticking to the bottle.

Also it's implied that the pony who's making that claim isn't the inventor but rather a ditzy salespony who the inventor hired because she's pretty and talks a good game but didn't bother to prep her for that specific question.

Mayor Fussbudget's plan succeeds in arresting the Nobody's Fools, but then he runs into the fact that even after the Watch seizes all their stuff, the most they have evidence to charge anyone for is a hoof-full of petty misdemeanors, the prisoners are not homeless street urchins as he assumed and have influential relatives who object to the unjustified arrests and use of excessive force, and Rainbow Dash isn't happy about him disobeying a royal command that she didn't want them arrested at that time. And to top it off, he had brought the press to the sting, so when the aftermath of his plan blows up in his face, all the details of his screw-up end up on the front page of the evening news.

He also didn't think to check Mach One's face before during the arrest or at the station. Otherwise he would have realized that he had tried to get his own nephew sent to prison.

Mach One accuses the Princesses of this in regards to the ascension plan, stating that there are bleeding heart liberal groups that will deride the plan on principle of not being sensitive to the disabled community's Special Snowflake Syndrome, and power hungry nobles who won't want to upend the status quo. Rainbow counters by stating that Mach has not taken into account two things: 1) Celestia is an expert Chessmaster who has dealt with these people before (if Alicornundrum is any indication) and 2) It's Worth It anyway.

When Twilight's plan to drive away the Timbrwolves that chased them into the abandoned mansion is to turn the surrounding trees into Whomping Willows, Spike points out that they've just gone from 'surrounded by ravenous Timberwolves' to 'surrounded by trees that'll bludgeon anything that get's near them'.

It's ultimately Apple Bloom who figures out how to take down Malfunziona and re-imprison him.

Mudpuppy and Sweetie Belle manage to bring down a lich by having Mudpuppy raise an army of sentient plants to Hold the Line until Sweetie Belle manages to bring the zomponies back to sentience with her singing.

Newly ascended Scootaloo and Mach stop a supercell that the Wonderbolts were struggling with by themselves and without speaking a single syllable to each other.

Disney Villain Death: Humorously averted with the Diamond Dog air pirates attacking Applejack's airship: a few boarders miss their jump and go plummeting away howling...and then their parachutes open, but they're still screaming like puppies. (Turns out subterranean races are a bit acrophobic.)

Disproportionate Retribution: The Crownbreakers' plot involved destroying a cloud stadium with about half of the audience being flightless just to punish Dash for being a "fake" princess.

Granny Smith gets to play this part when punishing the Manehattan bullies. She lays down the law in a tough no-nonsense manner.

Averted when Bishi says goodbye to his sensei — who turns out to be a much more serene Iron Will.

Dash calls Spitfire out on this attitude in chapter 16 because (among other reasons) she hasn't actually doing military work for a while.

Dungeon Bypass: Daring Do is apparently an expert at this. How did she deal with the cursed locks on the sarcophagus in the Temple of Lesser Sun? Dynamite (the museum wasn't too happy, as she damaged the sarcophagus). The deadly riddle doors in the Maze of Mysteries? Flying over the maze. The Minotaur King's killer golem, without having the Minotaur crown that controls it? Pouring water in the gears and letting the incredibly cold weather freeze it, wrenching the whole thing apart. The cursed plaque of Nunhotep? A sledgehammer. Hence why Celestia hired her to deal with the locks of the Chest of Harmony.

Eidetic Memory: Wheezer has one, and even got his cutie mark for it - a brain floating over a book. The other Fools call him a walking reference library.

Eldritch Location: The Gothic Forest. Number four on the list of the ten most possibly eldritch locations of Equestria, after the Scariest Cave in Equestria and ahead of the Everfree Forest. Twilight, Flash and Spike visit Hollow Shades, a village in the middle of this forest whose inn includes a wide range of protections against supernatural threats.

Eloquent in My Native Tongue: Diamond Dogs are not unintelligent; one of Applejack's Diamond Dog Roughnecks is actually quite scholarly. The problem is that the shape of the species' mouths keeps them from being able to pronounce most Equestrian words properly, so what comes out ends up sounding like Hulk Speak.

Sheriff Brass tries to arrest Trixie and Jasper for "impersonating royalty", only to find out way too late that they now ARE royalty.

The Crownbreakers believe that Celestia ascended all of the other new Alicorns when actually Twilight ascended herself and the rest of the Mane 6; Shining Armor was ascended by the Mane 6; Sunset Shimmer was ascended by Celestia, Cadance, and Shining Armor; Trixie and Jasper ascended themselves; Mudpuppy was born an Alicorn (having ascended in the womb); Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle earned their ascensions; and Rainbow Dash ascended Scootaloo, who in turn ascended Mach One. They also think it's a brilliant idea to destroy a cloud stadium, putting many lives at risk to get back at Dash, who they think is a "fake" princess.

Mach One's cynical rant in ch 45 is hilarious considering the things he doesn't know. While he has a few good points (like the lack of guardrails in Cloudsdale or Ponyvile's tradition about not using magic during Winter Wrap Up) he thinks that no one is working on cures for dismemberment (like missing wings) when, in this very story, Twilight visited mages who were working on that very thing and have succeeded in regrowing limbs via transfiguring the subject into a frog first, though in Mach's defense, this is not publicly known for various reasons.

Chapter 53 gives us the Gala Bullies discovering that their victims are now royalty. They are convinced that the Apple Clan now has all the clout they need to utterly destroy all of their families.

"Hush up that nonsense!" Granny snapped, making them jump. "We didn't bring you younguns to Sweet Apple Acres to get revenge on you! We brought you here 'acause you six messed up, and you needed to learn a lesson or two!" ... The expression on Granny Smith's face was a mix of anger, frustration, disappointment... and regret. "But it seems you-all learned all the wrong ones afore you even got here,"

Epic Fail: Bananas Foster is so bad at business that he had to declare bankruptcy on his lemonade stand, the bank foreclosed on his treehouse, and he became the first 12-year-old in Equestria's history to undergo an income tax audit.

Similarly, Rainbow Dash is extremely clumsy at flirting. Not only does her voice become husky instead of sultry, but she also falls off a table trying to impress Mach One. Then it gets even funnier as she realizes that Mach's voice is unusually high, and, lowering his hoodie herself, finds out that she just flirted with an underage pony. Cue her horrified "oh shit!" reaction.

Twilight Sparkle gets a moment of this in chapter 28 when her loyal friend Spike (who has been incinerating much of the admittedly pointless paperwork between her and her captain) asks Twilight to give poor Flash Sentry a break.

In this continuity: Starlight Glimmer was revealed to have been overthrown by her own lieutenant who had her imprisoned and ruled over Our Town with an iron fist, until Sunburstcame and saved her.

Evil Matriarch: Banana Liqueur, Foster's grandmother and wife of the head of the Chiquita Banana family, is this trope because of how smothering she was to her grandson. Unusually for this trope, she doesn't have any real power and her husband tells her to mind her own business, even calling her an old bat.

Eye Scream: Played for Laughs in chapter 12, when Fluttershy uses her Stare (now turbocharged due to her ascension) on Discord to get him to behave. It completely blows his eyes out of their sockets, but he replaces them by twisting one of his antlers.

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Family Theme Naming: Every member of Foster's family, like the Apple family, is named after bananas or products made from them. Known members are Banana Crème (mother), Banana Bread (father), Banana Supreme (grandfather and the family patriarch/founder), Banana Liqueur (grandmother), Banana Smoothie (uncle), Banana Pudding (baby sister, a.k.a. "Nanner Puddin'"), and Foster himself (his full name is Bananas Foster, but no one calls him that).

When Trixie appears in the fic, she's on the run from the corrupt sheriff of a town controlled by a group of bigoted earth ponies after she rescued two unicorn foals from them. When Celestia finds out she has the sheriff and every official of that town down to the dog-catcher arrested and replaced by interim appointees.

A potioneer dismisses Apple Bloom's warnings about how to prepare a potion, both because of her age and because Apple Bloom mentions Zecora's teachings; she considers herself way superior to any zebra shaman. Cue the explosion - not from Apple Bloom, but from said potion; both Apple Bloom and Zecora clearly know what they're talking about.

Crackerjack is a unicorn who wants to be a fighter. At one point, his dad (an earth pony) is bewildered at this, asking him why he isn't doing "unicorn things" with other unicorns; this prompts Crackerjack to ask exactly what "unicorn things" are.

In chapter 51, Presto is an earth pony who has been denied a proper education in magic because he isn't a unicorn. In spite of his extensive academic knowledge in the field.

Twilight: It would be just criminal if a promising young colt of your caliber was held back because of some institutionalized prejudice...

Fate Worse than Death: Mach One seems to feel that his uncle, Mayor Fussbudget might be headed for one of these in Chapter 51.

Okay, fine, just let him live? Mach squeaked. He found himself seriously starting to pity his selfish vote-grubbing uncle. Oh don't be silly, Pinkie said, suddenly her bubbly self again. Then just as suddenly she was back to scary mode. He'll live. Yup. Definitely pitying him now Mach decided.

She ends up force-feeding Fussbudget a replica of the papier-mâché cake he generously gave his nephew at the "birthday party" flightless appreciation event.

Flashback Echo: After Spitfire tells Rainbow Dash that the latter needs to be "taken down a peg", Rainbow flashes back to the time when her friends unmasked themselves as Mare-Do-Well, ending with Applejack saying almost the same thing. Naturally, Rainbow isn't pleased.

Foreshadowing: Mudpuppy's grandmother uses the term "handy-capable" when talking to Rarity. This term becomes a prominent plot point in the Windy City arc.

Forgot I Could Fly: Weaponized by Mach against the Crownbreaker terrorists. When he primed the cloud-solvent bombs, in addition to the parachute chords tied to their ankles, he left the Pegasus mare's wings unbound, saying it would have been their own faults if the cords had failed and they didn't make use of her flight abilities. Per the course with this trope, the terrorists were under the impression they would have fallen to their deaths.

Happens to Rarity twice when she's dragged by her locator spell across Neigh Orleans: once when she's first dragged off the ship (thankfully, her flailing her wings helped soften the landing), and later when she's about to crash into some road work (she does remember this time, unfortunately her earlier flailing has gotten her wings tangled in her dress-fortunately her guards are on hand to giver her a lift).

Four Lines, All Waiting: After the Coronation Ball, the Mane Six split up to search for nascent Alicorns individually. Since each chapter tends to focus on one or two of them (Or characters who joined them on their particular branch of the search) at a time, this means that any given character can be left out of the story for several chapters at a stretch.

A blink-and-you-miss-it example: Chapter 5 reveals that Spike still has Peewee. Peewee also gets mentioned again in Chapter 28.

For whatever reason, different circumstances mean that Equestria Girls didn't happen in this universe. Instead, Sunset Shimmer was arrested while infiltrating the Crystal Empire, after which Celestia makes amends and helps her ascend.

There's also the prequel's version of how Sombra was handled, where it took maybe a few minutes (tops) to defeat him utterly. In a similar vein, Twilight analyzed the riddle that Discord gave her, and found the Elements almost immediately, leaving Discord standing alone in the maze for over an hour before he tried to find the Mane Six... who were now decked out with the Elements and waiting for him.

Discord remembers the whole Tree ofHarmony situation before it gets out of hand, allowing the Royal Guard to stop the vines from spreading beyond the Everfree. The Mane Six still have to give up the Elements, but that doesn't matter now that they embody their Elements. The Tree of Harmony still produces the mystery box, but Celestia tells them not to worry about it for the moment. Later, she hires Daring Do to find a way inside.

Free-Range Children: Most young Pegasi have more freedom than unicorns and earth pony foals. Apparently a natural consequence of being flying children who wouldn't be easy to supervise closely anyway; their parents and guardians still try to be responsible and get sure they're fine by their own. For comparison, Rainbow Dash checking on Scootaloo via magic mirror every hour or so is smothering compared to the standard.

Friend to All Living Things: Mudpuppy fills this trope just as well as Fluttershy. The filly even has her own menagerie of swamp-dwelling critters, (frogs, salamanders, etc) some of whom hitch a ride in her mane.

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Gadgeteer Genius: Apple Bloom has to think very fast in order to jury-rig a trap for the (lesser) draconequus Malfunziona, using only items on display at the trade show in Baltimare. She succeeds so brilliantly that she gets her cutie mark AND becomes an Alicorn at the same time.

Getting Crap Past the Radar : Pinkie's karmic punishment on soon-to-be ex-Mayor Fussbudget is to force-feed him a papier-mâché cake, with Pinkie making several not-so-subtle comments on how this will affect his digestive system, and how he'll be busy for several days "Sitting on the throne, learning about the Power of Press". There's also the preamble trolling when Pinkie first enters his office...

Pinkie: And so I decided it was time for your Equestrias Number Two Uncle party! Fussbudget: How nice? Um, but arent those usually called Equestrias number One er, whatever? Pinkie: Oh, no. Youre definitely Number Two.

Gilligan Cut: This trope attempts to merge with Instantly Proven Wrong and create a new trope in Chapter 34. Twilight, Flash and Spike have arrived in the spooky, possibly haunted town of Hollow Shades. Fluttershy has arrived at the Foal Scout Jamboree just as it descends into chaos.

Spike: Yeah, ah-heh-heh... She'd be so petrified we'd have to put her in a trolley and roll her around. Her next stop couldn't possibly be as as much trouble for her as this one would have been.

Good Is Not Soft: Mach's a decent guy who cares deeply about his friends and those who can't protect themselves. So it's not entirely surprising that when he finds out the Crownbreakers' plan, he turns their remaining supplies on them and only spares them a parting taunt before going to try to save the day. He does take some precautions to give them an escape route but doesn't bother to tell them about them.

Good News, Bad News: Bad news, Pecan Praline is too far into labor to make it to a hospital in time for the birth. Good news, among her rescuers is Doctor Southern Comfort, and all he needs is the nearest roof and clean water.

Gratuitous Italian: Malfunziona peppers his speech with Italian words. It's likely due to being stuck in a statue in the counterpart country for five hundred years.

Griping About Gremlins: Malfunziona is essentially a merger of a gremlin and a draconeqeus. Especially since his power is to make technology go haywire.

Ground-Shattering Landing: In chapter 5, the Mane Six (minus Pinkie Pie) deliberately make use of this trope in order to convince the Pie Family that attending the Royal Coronation of Equestria's six newest princesses is just short of Compulsory.

Guys Are Slobs: When Twilight, Flash Sentry and Spike are going undercover in a town, Flash claims that as college men (their cover identity), he and Spike are expected to be "TOTAL SLOBS!" Which is why he's wearing an old, stained goofball jersey as part of his disguise. Twilight just rolls her eyes.

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Handicapped Badass: Twice over in Chapter 43, while Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo are visiting Windy City.

Scootaloo's scooter has been fitted with a fold-up glider, which she's gotten very good at maneuvering. She uses the rig to thoroughly embarrass two teenage colts who make fun of it.

A gang of pranksters is led by a one-winged Pegasus who is incredibly talented at Le Parkour. Another member, whom Scootaloo meets after her showdown with the bullies, is a mute unicorn colt who can play music and sound effects from his horn.

Luna and Celestia go into one when they realize that Twilight had successfully ascended the Mane Six into Alicorns.

Twilight does one when she indulges a long-held dream of hers: entering a bookstore and buying one of everything on the shelves.

A young unicorn who was trying to market his newest invention - the fountain pen - keeps breaking out in giddy hysterics after Apple Bloom introduces him to Twilight Sparkle and Twilight promptly ordered a thousand of them, a lifetime's worth of ink refill and replacement nibs and gave his product a royal seal of approval.

HeelFace Turn: Sunset Shimmer, thanks to a combination of Celestia's apology, being told of the Panacea, and being ascended herself, reconciles with Celestia and become a truly heroic character.

As of chapter 53, Granny Smith is trying to Invoke this with the Manehatten bullies. She started by putting Marzipan in charge of three piglets with the promise of paying her to take care of them.

Hidden Depths: Dapper Blue, a member of Rarity's Radiant Guard, is an avid gardener and has his own greenhouse aboard her airship. He breeds plants with unusual magical properties, including an explosive chili pepper that he uses to bring down a kappa in the Neigh Orleans swamps.

Hope Is Scary: The administrators of Windy City's Flightless Foal's Clinic believe that permanently crippled foals should be convinced to accept their limitations instead of getting their hopes dashed time and again by experimental treatments. Dr. Hospice considers this idea antithetical to the very practice of medicine. After all, the treatments will never work if they are not used and so hope should be maintained until a successful one is found. He eventually ends up in charge of the clinic after Prince Mach One takes it over and fires the entire administrative board.

Most of Lord Malifec's attacks are completely useless against his own zombies, so he's pretty much defenseless when they turn against him.

When Mach One captures two Crownbreakers and learns of their plan to set off bombs that will disintegrate the Thunderdome cloud stadium, he leaves them tied up with a couple of their own bombs primed to destroy the floor under them. He doesn't tell them that he's tied parachute cord to their ankles to keep them from falling too far. Nor does he tell the Pegasus of the pair that he left her wings unbound, calling it karma if they forgot they could fly.

Hold the Line: In Chapter 42, Mudpuppy, Sweetie Belle, and their plant army are forced to defend a blessed hillock against the lich Malifec and his army of zomponies and kappas. They spend hours spawning soldiers and singing battle marches.

Her beauty is said to entrance not only stallions but also colts, to the point that almost anyone of the opposite gender who meets her instantly falls in love.

A Forest Guard being teased about the butterfly logo on his uniform only needed a picture of her and a fashion magazine (where she has a lingerie shot) to become the envy of the bar he was drinking in.

It's even a recruitment requirement for the Forest Guard; Celestia deliberately went for guards who were quiet-yet-ferocious, can work with animals.... and gets soppy looks on their faces whenever Fluttershy walked past them.

Played for Laughs with Rainbow Dash: Mach finds the newly-ascended Mane Six pretty, but puts an emphasis on Rainbow Dash (who he calls a hottie). Rainbow Dash also gets a crush on him, and later on attempts to seduce him.... Which results in an Epic Fail as she fails to do a sultry voice, falls off the table trying to lean seductively, and doesn't realize Mach is not of legal age.

Diamond Dogs sound like this when they try to speak the Equestrian language because the shape of their mouths makes it hard for them to form the words properly.

Played for Laughs after the unjustified arrest of the Nobody's Fools, when Ms. Harshwhinny talks Rainbow Dash out of storming the police station:

Rainbow: Killing ponies bad, even if make Dash happy.

Humans Are Warriors: Sunset Shimmer realizes that this is the reason her plans of conquest in the human world were doomed to failure from the very start.

Humans were helpless-looking things with no magic, with no fangs or talons, no scales or fiery breath, no monstrous strength, no hooves, horns, or wings, nothing but soft helpless monkey things. Soft helpless monkey things who leveled their own cities with a push of a button when they got angry enough.

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I Always Wanted to Say That: Twilight's thrilled that she can walk into one of her favorite stores (a book store, of course) and order one of everything.

Happens to poor Apple Bloom twice, and in the presence of the same colt, Fancy Toff. The first time, at the Junior Gala, he tells her she's been eating caviar, goose liver pate, and shrimp toast, the last of which she knows as "mud bugs." The second time, at the Cherry Jubilee in Dodge Junction, she learns that the honey she's been sampling is essentially recycled bee vomit. Both instances end with Apple Bloom losing her lunch and ruining some expensive clothing - first her own gown and those of two other fillies, then Fancy Toff's pageboy hat.

The second incident also gave Apple Bloom nightmares that Luna had to help her with. This required poor Luna to witness a dream about pony-sized vomiting bees, which put the princess off of honey herself. A side effect was that Apple Bloom kept waking Babs up with her three-a-night runs to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

Idle Rich: Played straight at first with Fancy Toff, a noble's son attending the Junior Gala. Averted by the time of the Cherry Jubilee in Dodge Junction; he's started helping out around his father's honey/sweetener business.

If Only You Knew: When Mammaw first sees a thoroughly disheveled Rarity, Mammaw exclaimes "Sakes alive, chile! Did summon drag ye here by yer horn?" Rarity's magic did indeed drag her through the swamp to Mammaw and Mudpuppy.

Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: Mach One has a lot of valid criticisms about the failings of Equestrian Society, however, his comments regarding why there aren't any non-fliers living in Cloudsdale and why Canterlot is built on the side of a mountain are rather off the mark regarding the actual situation. The latter has to do with Unicorn nesting instinct making them build high up rather than to exclude Earth Ponies and Pegasi due to being respectively higher and lower than they'd like, and in the case of the former, it's because Mach can't conceive that perhaps non-Pegasi just might not be comfortable living in the cloud city on account that they can't fly. He misses this point even after calling out how impractical living in Cloudsdale really is on account of having absolutely no farmlands to grow food on and basically relying on importing food grown on the ground. He's also unaware that Celestia has mages working on cures for dismemberment and they have achieved partial success.

I Need a Freaking Drink: After her short arc in Neigh Orleans, which involves getting dragged through the bayou and having to sleep on a lice-infested bed, among other things, Rarity decides to get "smashed off [her] freaking plot" (her words) once back on her airship. Her servants eventually switch the champagne in her mimosas for ginger ale in a well-meaning (if hopelessly belated) effort to keep her from doing too much damage to herself.

"Oh my is that Duke Wellington?" Blueblood exclaimed in a terrified falsetto. "Oh do excuse me everyone I fear I have some important business involving boots to discuss if you will please excuse me..." He didn't so much hurry away as frantically scuttle, his hooves skidding on the tile floor in his haste to be quit of this particular fresh slice of hell.

Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Deconstructed. When Rainbow Dash visits a doctor to learn more about why Scootaloo can't fly, he goes on at length about how this attitude has stymied attempts to actually cure handicaps instead of laying down and taking it.

Doctor Hospice: We used to understand that if something was broken, you fixed it. You didn't take it and tell it how wonderful it was to be broken. When did that start becoming sane?

Insult to Rocks: Bowser's Diamond Dog parents are not impressed with the city watch's charges against their son. They are most especially disappointed by how flimsily they are constructed.

So....maybe involved with group that maybe connected to other group that maybe have plans that maybe terrorist... He held up a paw. Four maybes. You get one more maybe, you reach 'once upon a time.'  His eyelids drooped further. We know ponies think Diamond Dogs stupid, but ROCKS not THAT dumb.

Internal Reveal: Chapter 51 has the "Big Sisters" introduce the freshly ascended CMCs simultaneously. Their collective squeeing is described as ear splitting.

Irony: Bananas Foster, the heir apparent to the Chiquita Archipelago Banana Empire, who built their fortune on bananas, has a banana peel in his cutie mark, whose whole family are named after banana products and has eaten bananas his entire life, HATES BANANAS! It's because he had too much of them pushed onto him too fast. The cutie mark actually refers to the slipped-on-a-banana-peel joke.

Alicorn Academy, named in honor of the princesses, pretty much runs on everything they can't stand, from preventing ponies from reaching their full potential to allowing professors to fail students just because they don't like them, often for petty reasons like "not agreeing with every word I say".

Is This Thing On?: Rarity runs into this trope while attempting to make a ship-wide announcement.

Jailbait: Rainbow Dash is dumbstruck to find out that the one-winged stallion leader of the Nobody's Fools (and whom she has a crush on) is just a kid.

Jailbait Wait: After getting pranked by an introduction to the newly ascended adolescent Alicorn prince Mach One, and then learning that he's actually pretty good at quoting romantic poetry, Luna declares that she's offended by the familiarity implied by his poem, and as such will not speak to him again... until he's legal.

When arresting all the members of the Filli Terriam, Celestia also takes the time to shut down their racial purity nonsense by pointing out that she — who they revere as much as any other of her subjects — couldn't be any more mixed racially.

When Mach is lecturing his Uncle Fussbudget after his ascension, he shoots down every attempt Fussbudget gives to defend his actions as a Corrupt Politician.

Rainbow Dash delivers one to the Crownbreakers responsible for the destruction of the Thunderdome about how their action was pointlessly destructive and cruel, and she does it in full ROYAL CANTERLOT VOICE no less.

For attempting to assault the CMC, Babs Seed and Bishi (four of whom are immediate family of Princesses and one of them an apprentice/honorary sister to one), Babs' bullies get their flanks kicked and subsequently cut off by royal decree; they are also sent off to work at Sweet Apple Acres.

Orange Roughy challenges Bishi to a sparring match, and during said match, asks Bishi to remove his padded booties and helmet, despite his hesitation. Needless to say, one punch knocked him out and, as later Fluttershy reveals, causes him to lose his teeth.

For stomping on Rainbow Dash's Berserk Button and dissing her in Chapter 13, Spitfire gets her flank handed to her in less than three seconds in a scuffle, followed by Rainbow chewing the Wonderbolt captain out, big-time.

Sheriff Brass gets a taste of this; for abandoning two foals in the woods just for being unicorns (he was an Earth Pony supremacist) and hunting down Trixie to the point of leaving his jurisdiction for over a year, he gets fired and arrested by Celestia.

Celestia also does the same to his deputy and the mayor of his town (also Earth Pony supremacists), and states she will personally go to their town of Hope to not only replace them, but possibly most of the towns bureaucratic leaders.

Mayor Fussbudget of Windy City gets one when it's exposed just how far he bent the law to arrest the Nobody's Fools. First a whole herd of concerned parents show up to register their disapproval... loudly. Then Harshwhinny enters the scene and tears his flimsy attempts at justification to shreds. Then he discovers that the story's already hit the press, and the whole city knows that the Mayor ordered a raid on a skating club in direct violation of Princess Rainbow's explicit orders, and arrested the Princess's foster sister in the process.

And now the nephew he trotted around like a cardboard cut-out and then abandoned for calling him out is an Alicorn, meaning Mach has no interest in ANY of Fussbudget's ideologies or political actions so Mach's probably going to work with the Princesses to overturn most if not all of Fussbudget's policies and is definitely going to destroy any hope Fussbudget has of any kind of political career.

Also, his punishment for using Mach's birthday party to improve his public image, and giving him a papier-mâché cake? Pinkie makes an identical cake, and forces him to eat it all, which will give him several days worth of digestive issues.

Minor example: Banana Smoothie, Foster's uncle, sneers about the family having wasted money on Foster's tuition. Foster explains that the university refunded most of it because he dropped out so early, and he sent it back to the family member in charge of the finances. This just happens to be Smoothie himself, who kept the money for himself and instantly ends up on the whole family's bad side for it.

The Crownbreaker saboteurs who intended to blow up the cloud stadium, potentially dropping every flightless patron in attendance to their deaths, just to get at Dash end up having their own tools turned on them by a furious Mach, who has no qualms about leaving them to potentially die. He did tie parachute cords to their ankles and left the mare's wings unbound but he saw no reason to tell them either of those things.

Diamond Tiara, having not undergone her canon HeelFace Turn as per all of RC's fanfics, gets a delicious breakdown after the CMC ascend, even wailing "We were the in crowd, they were the out crowd. When they get back, we're going to be so far out of the in crowd they'll have to make up whole new words to describe how NOT IN we are..."

Let Us Never Speak of This Again: In chapter 44, Spritz insists that the Nobody's Fools promised never to talk about an accident in which he passed out, caught fire and exploded. Foster says he never joined in on that promise and cheerfully tells Scootaloo the whole story.

Life Will Kill You: There are many "natural" things in life that will eventually kill a pony. Celestia and Luna think this is stupid and seek the aid of other alicorns in order to defy this trope (at least as far as disease and old age goes).

Literal Ass-Kicking: In chapter 27, Rarity tells the others how she delivered one to Prince Blueblood after her Personality Powers determined that was what he needed most at that moment. And how she blamed her actions on being drunk at the time.

Living Forever Is Awesome: Celestia and Luna are tired of outliving everypony else, but otherwise they hold this opinion. Thus, they ask the Mane Six to assist them in their quest to make everypony immortal. The trope is more nuanced than the standard in that they are truly seeking an end to senescence or "old age" so that nopony has to wither, sicken or grow frail before they die.

Living Lie Detector: Applejack's Elemental powers give her a version of this that overlaps with Blessed with Suck. She can tell when she isn't getting the full story, even if whoever's talking to her is telling her everything they know, and her Element won't let her rest until she gets all the facts.

Her Element also gives her the power to decide whether somepony is telling her the truth, not just because they're confident but because they have the facts to back it up. In Chapter 37, she uses this ability to determine that the statue of Malfunziona is harmless, sensing a chain of connections that leads 500 years back to the original sculptor.

Applejack does this with the Glass Palace housing the Trade Expo when Malfunziona sabotages it.

Rainbow Dash attempts this with the collapsing Thunderdome, with significantly less success; however, the thaumic backlash of the attempt provides the raw magical fuel for the double ascension of Scootaloo and Mach One.

Apple Bloom: "Then what's the bottle made out of?" She said suspiciously. "If it sticks to everything, then it shouldn't be able to come out of the bottle at all!"

In chapter 38, Apple Bloom devises an epic mechanical version to contain Malfunziona, whose power only allows him to break things. It's a 3-D arrangement of gears meshed so that none of them can turn, with him trapped inside. Breaking any gear will allow the others to turn freely, effectively fixing the device - something Malfunziona absolutely can't do. She ends up getting her cutie mark and ascending to Alicornhood as a result.

Bold Lion's original prison for him worked on a similar principle: a bronze container with a screw-on lid that would tighten the more you tried to unscrew it.

Loophole Abuse: Malfunziona can't directly affect any of the livestock at the expo in Ch 38. So he breaks their enclosures and sets off a string of loud firecrackers, causing a mass livestock panic / stampede, thus distracting the opposition.

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MacGyvering: After Malfunziona lets a swarm of Whizbees loose in the Expo, Apple Bloom builds a bug vacuum from the broken pieces of everything else that Malfunziona had wrecked to trap them. And then shoots the now very angry electric bees up the draconequus' nose.

Mage Tower: It's noted that unicorns, especially those who were involved in arcane research, are susceptible to "Rincewind Arcology Syndrome", a sort of overpowering nesting instinct to find a location to do all their magic in, fortify it, and build vertically - the higher the better. Examples cited include castles on mountaintops, tower observatories, tree libraries, book forts and even Rarity's Carousel Boutique (bedroom in the cupola). Twilight explains that the going theory for this behavior is that their ancestors got tired of the other tribes sneaking up behind them and popping paper bags while they were trying to study the workings of the universe.

Cotton Mouth initially appeared to be responsible for the kappa, hinkypunk and zombie infestations around Neigh Orleans. Turns out they're all working for the same being, a lich and necromancer who is also responsible for the destruction of the city of Port Malfou two or three hundred years before.

The Crownbreakers have somepony backing them up; but whoever they are, they haven't been revealed as of ch 55. They've been supplying the jackasses who are the public faces of the movement (including Poindexter, Mayor Fussbudget's intern) with the funding they need.

Man on Fire: The side effect of a phoenix-feather-based potion left a patient spontaneously combusting at random intervals.

Marry Them All: Ponies can form herds (or at least used to, fairly recently. It's far less common in the present.) Sweetie Belle thinks this'd be the perfect solution to all the CMC crushing on Breezy Shy.

The bullies get this when they realize the CMC were telling the Truth about being related to the new Princesses... via an angry Applejack showing up after hearing them start to plan getting revenge.

The Wonderbolts were badmouthing the recently-coronated Rainbow behind her back, because they thought that she had not earned her position. Unfortunately, Scootaloo enters the room at the worst possible time (managing to overhear everything they were saying), leading to this reaction. Unusually, the reaction of the entire group is only said out loud by one member.

When the Crownbreakers' plan to destroy the Thunderdome goes off, panic is the reaction of everyone there.

Chapter 52 is a chapter-long one suffered by all of Ponyville upon their learning that the Cutie Mark Crusaders are now alicorns.

MayflyDecember Romance: Luna had one about 500 years before her banishment; she swore not to try again, but after 1,500 years of not getting any she's feeling a bit tense. And as of chapter 7, Cadence and Shining Armor's marriage is no longer one.

Meaningful Echo: Mach One's telling Scootaloo "Well then, I guess one of us had better learn to fly really quick". The first time, he's joking around as the two are safely diving off a cliff; the second time, he's serious, as the two are in freefall in the middle of a supercell at that point. Fortunately, they both indeed learn to fly soon after.

Medieval Stasis: Equestria was in one until 500 years ago thanks to a lesser draconequus known as Malfunziona who made mechanical devices malfunction. Then he was bound by the pony equivalent of Leonardo da Vinci.

Meekness Is Weakness: Discussed and subverted - Iron Will explains how his previous encounters with Fluttershy set him on the path to learning that "Meekness is not weakness, it is strength under control."

Mercy Kill: Between what was done to him by his own experiments and the Lich's curse, Cotton Mouth flat out asks for one and is granted it.

Missing Secret: The basis of one of Rainbow Dash's pranks, which Scootaloo tells Mach One about. She took four piglets, painted the numbers "1", "2", "3" and "5" on their sides, and released them in Town Hall. As a result, poor Mayor Mare spent the whole day going out of her mind trying to find the extra piglet.

Applejack briefly falls victim to this, when she first meets her zebra guardsman Omari. First, when she expresses surprise at a zebra in the Royal Guard, he asks if that's a problem, and when she asks if he knows Zecora, he seems insulted that she apparently assumes all zebras know each other.

Southern Comfort expresses his discomfort for using zebra potions as remedies in such a way that Applejack believes he's got a problem with zebras. He gets flustered and explains he meant because they're untested.

Modest Royalty: All the Mane Six and the other new Alicorns, but also Prince Ajax the gryphon, who instantly hits off a friendship with Rainbow Dash over their shared dislike for courtly decorum.

Chapter 50 goes from hilarious to heart-pounding terror to breathtakingly awesome in short order.

Mooning: Pinkie Pie and Luna indulge in this to their audience during the Maredi Gras parade. This being Maredi Gras, they are rewarded with many bead necklaces.

My Defense Need Not Protect Me Forever: Sweetie Bell and Mudpuppy are trapped in an Uncharted area by the Lich Malefic. Since their chances of finding the way out are slim to none, they take a different approach. Their plan is to set up a signal fire, guard it with living plant soldiers, and hope the other alicorns find them before Malefic breaks their defenses.

Mundane Made Awesome: What is Trixie's final trump card when she thinks she and Jasper are about to be arrested by the ascended Sunset Shimmer? Beg for mercy in the most outlandish way possible.

Mundane Solution: When Twilight and Trixie are struggling to figure out a way for the latter send the former notes on the latter's illusion spells, Dash hits upon the perfect solution: hold the notes up to a magic mirror, and have someone on the receiving end photograph them. Cue nearly everyone Facehoofing.

Music Soothes the Savage Beast: When under siege by the lich's army of minions, Sweetie Belle uses music to prevent the Home Defense plants from fighting each other, and direct them against the minions, and later, after running out of plants, manages to turn the minions against the lich with a song.

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Names to Trust Immediately: The unicorn, Southern Comfort, is a doctor. This means he is addressed as "Dr. Comfort". Likewise, there is Dr. Hospice Care and Nurse Tender Care.

Apparently the greatest state of chaos Canterlot palace ever faced was not at the hands of Nightmare Moon or Discord or the Changelings, but when a griffon ambassador's wife called Celestia's hindquarters fat.

"One hundred bowling balls... three hundred and sixty five 'happy pine tree' carriage air fresheners... twenty four ACME brand cannons... a blender... six hundred boxes of instant cake mix... one ton of confetti... one hundred forty four pink flamingos... a bag of marbles... five bags of fortune cookies... a lug wrench... a box of elephant prophylactics... Five cans of purple paint... five cans of yellow paint... five cans of PINK paint... one jelly-bean pooping plastic moose... five spare tires... a rubber life raft... eight thousand Kewpie pony dolls... a giant flyswatter...a toaster... one pair of each kind of 'Groucho Marks' glasses... one live parrot... one dead parrot, stuffed..."

Even more hilarious is that Luna admits she can think of uses for over half of those items...which worries her. Naturally, as Noodle Implements, the uses are not given.

The departure ceremony at the end of chapter 12 probably accounts for how the cannons, cake mix, and some of the confetti are being used...

And in Chapter 30, Pinkie reveals that she and Luna have been dropping cupcakes (tied to balloons) on the towns they pass during their travels.

The dolls and paint actually look reasonable and obvious. Which may be a Red Herring, of course.

Not a Mask: Sweetie Belle realizes the zomponies are not costumed actors when she sees a front leg fall off.

Not Me This Time: A rare heroic example; when Malfunziona escapes his imprisonment, Applejack assumes that he's another one of Celestia's "time-released" prisoners. Turns out, Celestia's never even heard of him, and he was actually sealed away by someone else.

Not So Above It All: Harshwhinny, a very serious, professional bureaucrat, who gets regularly annoyed by Rainbow's antics, has a little fun at the cyan Alicorn's expenses via some trolling.

Not So Harmless Punishment: For all their failings as an academic institution and breeding ground for the likes of the Crownbreakers, The Alicorn Academy gets...matched donations. Instead of the government giving them grants or loans, it will instead match whatever donations they receive from alumni and fundraisers and so on. This doesn't sound like much of a punishment, until Dash tells them that because the university has been doing so poorly in recent years, virtually no one has been making donations and they've been relying almost exclusively on the crown funds which have now been cut off.

Not the Intended Use: Rainbow Dash uses bubblegum trading cards to help figure out the lineup for Wonderbolt shows. Spitfire thinks it's funny at first, but she soon realizes that those cards give quick summaries of performance stats for the ponies on them and can even be used to rough out flying formations.

Banana Supreme, Bananas Foster's grandfather, is the one responsible for the family fortune. Supreme's wife, Banana Liqueur, is obsessed with earning the respect of the Canterlot nobility; he couldn't care less, though, and he tells her bluntly that she'll never get it.

Babs' bullies are this trope as well, meaning their parents are quite eager to advance in society, even throwing away teaching their foals basic decency in favor of social climbing tactics.

Luna encourages Rarity to become a patron for those who have recently gained wealth, so that they may be truly noble like herself and Fancy Pants instead of turning into scheming, pompous twits.

O

Obvious Rule Patch: The manager at a Cloud City fast food joint laments Mayor Fussbudget's quick closing of a critical loophole in one of his "Healthy for your own good" ordinances in Chapter 51.

I'm sorry, Your Highness, he said with a weary sigh to Prince Ajax. We would love to fill your order, especially with all you and the young fellow here have done, but the Mayor's Good Health For Your Own Good ordinances mean we would get hit with all sorts of fines if we served you any meal larger than a certain size, or sold you more than a certain number of orders at once—- filthy little control freak closed THAT loophole fast enough— he muttered under his breath, seething briefly—  and yes, I know it's ridiculous and it's none of the Mayor's business and everything else I'm sure you want to say, but—

Of Corset Hurts: First thing Dash does after her coronation ceremony is over is strip off her girdle and advise Scootaloo to never let anyone talk her into wearing one.

Offing the Offspring: There used to be, as Mach One points out, a custom of literally bumping off disabled Pegasus foals that was ended fairly recently (as in, "Cloudsdale still has No OSHA Compliance regarding guardrails" and "Hey, remember how nopony tried to help Fluttershy when she fell, despite a policy of If They Are Falling You Catch Them?" recently). It's stated to be one of the reasons they live in floating cities.

When Pinkie Pie becomes an Alicorn, she realizes she can do magic. This trope is Rarity's reaction.

Pinkie Pie: Oh boy oh boy oh boy, does this mean I can do magic now too?

Rarity: GOD HAVE MERCY ON OUR SOULS!

Also in Chapter 30 when the princesses realize Fluttershy, who had become So Beautiful, It's a Curse, will be around dozens if not hundreds of young colts.

Discord's reaction at learning that Malfunziona is loose at the Expo is not delighted at the chaos the lesser will create.

Mach's reaction when the Crownbreakers' plot turns out to involve destroying a cloud stadium with a crowd that's at least half flightless patrons is a mix of panic and fury.

Rainbow Dash attempts to flirt with Mach One, only to be confused by his reply; it was unusually high-voiced. This is her reaction to finding out Mach is underage.

Rainbow Dash: OH TARTARUS, YOU'RE JUST A KID!!!

"Oh, Crap!" Smile: Banana Foster's family thought all their tuition money they'd used to try to hammer business lessons into his head was wasted when he walked out. But Foster had the college refund the money... to his uncle, Banana Smoothie, who'd secretly kept the money to himself this whole time. The family glares at Banana Smoothie, who returns a sickly smile.

Banana Pudding: Uncle Smoothie's in trouble again, isn't he?

Oh, No... Not Again!: The side effect of a phoenix-feather-based potion left a patient spontaneously combusting at random intervals.

One-Gender Race: Something that's been frustrating Luna for centuries is the lack of Alicorn stallions. There are now three male Alicorns as of the Windy City arc, but Shining Armor is taken and Jasper and Mach One are underage. Dash might end up calling dibs on Mach when he grows up, and Dinky Doo is said to be "on the inside track" with Jasper.

Only Sane Man: Fire Streak is the only Wonderbolt who thinks it might be a bad idea to badmouth Rainbow Dash. You know; their new boss.

Our Liches Are Different: Cotton Mouth turns out to be working for one, Malefic. He is a rotting, corpse like creature who wields necromancy to enslave both the living and the dead.

Pinkie Pie's family sent her to Ponyville and have barely talked to her since - not out of malice, but because they wanted her to have a life free of persecution due to her unusual abilities.

While Rarity and Sweetie Belle's parents are generally nice, they have a tendency to go off on long trips and leave Sweetie Belle in the care of various sitters.

Foster's entire family tried to force him into business, completely ignoring that he was terrible at it and that their treatment was making him miserable.

Mach's antagonistic relationship with Fussbudget stems from a six month period in the past where Fussbudget acted as this to Mach. Mach eventually snapped and called him out.

Personality Powers: The Bearers' inherent traits, as they relate to their Elements, have only been enhanced by their ascension into Alicorns.

Rainbow Dash is now able to feel her guards' loyalty to her.

Chapter 46 reveals this goes deeper: she can see all the bonds of loyalty that every pony (and probably every being that's got pony-level intelligence) has and also whether the loyalty is true and at what strength the bond is held by both sides of the bond. This enables her to give the Nobody's Fools the benefit of the doubt when they're accused of being part of the Crownbreakers and Scootaloo defends them; she knows Scootaloo well enough to know that ponies doing the things the Crownbreakers have done and are threatening to do could never earn the pure clean loyalty she sees Scootaloo has for the Fools.

In chapter 51 to her displeasure, she finds she can also feel betrayal, which she describes as a rotten sensation that makes her nauseous.

Rarity's ability to find gems has been expanded into the ability to know what ponies need at that exact moment, and then let her find it and get it to them. This includes the plant that saves Sweet Peach's life, the Alicorn who helped grow it, and enough booze for a massive drinking binge to calm her nerves after the crisis has passed.

The Plan: Celestia and Luna's plan is thus: find other Alicorns, and with a combination of their magic, insight, and (ahem) bloodlines, abolish old age. There's also a smaller part of making Alicorns just another pony race so Alicorn doesn't automatically equal supreme ruler and ponies can learn to govern themselves.

Politically Motivated Teacher: The university teachers in Windy City have taken this to the point where the extent to which students agree with and help advocate the teacher's personal views is part of their grade. Which brings about student protests on any subject imaginable clogging up the streets every week, and creating the environment that brought about the Crownbreakers. This causes Rainbow Dash to rework how the crown subsidizes higher education in a manner that will cut their funding severely in the short term, hopefully inspiring them to reorganize the school to focus on teaching the actual course material instead of the various causes of the faculty.

Well, not kills, but it does lead to a lot of friction between the Wonderbolts and Rainbow Dash. Spitfire claims that Celestia told her about their new assignment... which Rainbow Dash assumes is that they've all been briefed on "The Plan" (see above). Celestia actually told Spitfire that their mission was to keep an eye on Rainbow Dash, and that Dash would provide further details later. As such, the Wonderbolts feel like they're babysitting a spoiled fan-girl, while Dash can't understand why they don't like her.

Pinkie thought her family sent her away because they were scared she was "Jinxed". They were, scared for her, namely that the ponies they lived around would hurt her over it and so sent her to Ponyville where odd things were more common in hopes of letting her live a more normal life. And the reason they didn't reply to her initial coronation invites was they thought people might look down on Pinkie from coming from a family of rock farmers and didn't want her reputation to suffer.

In Chapter 34, the opening ceremony of the Colt Scout Jamboree is ruined by a horde of enraged squirrels. One of the scouts had tried to invite them, but ended up inciting a riot because he didn't speak their language very well.

A VERY literal example with the Vitality Elixir. Apparently, the original formula worked quite well, but, over time, some details got lost in translation, and the many attempts to find the right ingredient, or a good substitute, had been either useless or extremely dangerous, as is what happened with Cotton Mouth's version; similar to what happened with the original Snake Oil which is referenced.

"Then it's a good thing this little blank-flank FOAL," said Apple Bloom, "Is holding a GUN."

Precursors: Daring Do figures that one of these is responsible for creating the Tree of Harmony, she just can't figure out who.

Professor Guinea Pig: Cotton Mouth tested his vitality elixir on himself before marketing it as a tonic for pregnant mares. However, the side effects that showed that it didn't work nearly as well as he thought on himself didn't show up until well after the elixir had killed virtually every foal exposed to it.

"I know what happened the last time the ancient Lemurians used one of their widgets that had six keys." "What?" "The continent of Lemuria sank." Daring Do said grimly, adjusting her pith helmet. "Not often I've had to do an archaeological survey in a diving helmet."

Also, the creators of the Tree of Harmony have Lemurian-level of paranoia, to the point that if the Tree and its creations weren't so benevolent, she would be inclined to believe they created it (the Lemurians managed to sink their own continent; the Elements of Harmony, for all their power, could not harm anyone, no matter how aggressively they were used).

Hollow Shades' residents have prepared their homes with multiple measures against the various monsters and ghosts that apparently haunt the area.

Footnote 1: The dour moon princess had complained that "it looked like some ancient pagan fertility ritual." Till both Rarity and Fluttershy had given her a double barreled dose of the Sad Puppy Dog Eyes. The flowers stayed.

In Chapter 44, Scootaloo meets Mach One and his buddies, the Nobody's Fools, none of whom quite fit the norm of pony society. A one-winged Pegasus (Mach), a mute unicorn who can play music/sounds through his horn (Flute), a talented graffiti artist (Cookie Spritzer), an earth pony studying unicorn magic (Presto), a scrawny brawler who also happens to be a unicorn, making him doubly odd as a brawler (Crackerjack), a zebra/donkey hybrid who speaks several languages (Zonk), a colt raised by Diamond Dogs (Bowser), another who makes dolls for foals in hospitals and orphanages (Soft Touch), an asthmatic comic book nerd with a formidable memory (Wheezer), and a rich family's son with a talent for comedy (Bananas Foster) who fears being disowned if his parents ever find out about the group. Another of their members is a young griffon (Fledge) whose family owns a major tourist attraction that the Fools love to visit whenever they can scrape up the cash.

Raised by Wolves: Bowser of the Nobody's Fools was raised by Diamond Dogs. They had adoption papers and everything.

Happens twice with Flash Sentry. He enters the story as a lieutenant, having recently been promoted after stopping Sunset Shimmer from stealing the Element of Magic. Later, when Twilight inducts the first bunch of Royal Guards into her service as the Twilight Guard, Celestia's last act as their commander is to make Flash a captain on the spot. She points out that since he's going to be in charge of this security detail, he should have the rank to go with it.

When Celestia learns that there aren't enough Royal Guards to provide a security detail for all of the Mane Six, she immediately promotes all the recruits in basic training to active duty. "Welcome to the world of on-the-job-training" indeed.

Reaching Between the Lines: In Chapter 14, Pinkie Pie reaches through the magic mirrors they're using to communicate to give Rainbow Dash a hug. Naturally, everypony else wonders how she did that.

Real Joke Name: Zonk's birth name looks exotic on paper and sounds beautiful when spoken from the perspective of an Equestrian, but when translated out of Zebrabwayan, it means "Copyright 988, All Rights Reserved". To make it sillier, a statement made by a watch-zebra upon learning this implies that he is not the first person to end up with a name of this nature.

Chapters 15 and 16 have a back and forth of this: The latter half of chapter 15 involves Spitfire chewing out Rainbow Dash because she thinks Dash didn't "earn" her position as a Firebolt or princess. Chapter 16 swings the other direction with Dash reminding Spitfire that all the deeds she had done, including her work with the Elements of Harmony and her Sonic Rainbooms, as well as saving Spitfire's life, were all based on her own merit while every time the Wonderbolts have been called to do anything more than put on a stunt show, they'd failed spectacularly.

In Chapter 29, Celestia gives one to Sheriff Brass. Starting with the fact that his ongoing pony-hunt against Trixie basically means that he hasn't set hoof in the territory he's supposed to be responsible for for over a year and working up from there.

Chapter 48 is practically vacuum-packed with these. Most of them are directed at Mayor Fussbudget and the officers he sent to perform a totally unjustified raid and mass arrest on the Nobody's Fools, but Bananas Foster gives a hilariously unhinged one to his family for trying to force him into a career he truly hates.

Chapter 49 features Foster's grandfather Banana Supreme giving his wife Banana Liqueur one for meddling in the affairs of the family, saying that he built his business empire so his family could be happy, not forced into business against their will. He gives a shorter one to his son Banana Smoothie for thinking that Foster wasted his tuition money by dropping out of college.

Chapter 51 has three of them. Two are delivered by Rainbow Dash, to the two Crownbreakers about to go on trial for wrecking the Thunderdome and to the Alicorn Academy faculty/staff who have wasted huge amounts of royal funds. Mach One delivers one to Mayor Fussbudget for his willingness to do anything he had to in order to keep his grip on political power.

Reasonable Authority Figure: Commissioner Gold Star. He more or less recognizes that the Crownbreakers are a bigger threat than the Nobody's Fools, only begins investigating the latter due to concerns that they might've been infiltrated by the former, and only goes along with Fussbudget's poorly planned raid out of concern that he'd be replaced with some mindless stooge who'd make a bad situation worse.

Recursive Fanfiction: Chapter 29 was one for A Great and Powerful Heart: After leaving Promise, Trixie and Jasper spent a year being hunted by Sheriff Brass and his friends from Filli Terram. During a magic show, Jasper and Trixie end up ascending to alicornhood. Later, with Princess Celestia's help, they stage a magic show to both introduce themselves as royalty, and perform a sting operation on Sheriff Brass and Filli Terram friends.

They held that tableau for a heartbeat. "Very well," Trixie said, grimly. "You leave me no choice." With that she flung herself at Sunset Shimmer's hooves, wrapping her forelegs around Sunset's ankle and began howling like a distraught diamond dog. "Oh please have mercy your great and anonymous highness we swear to you it was unintentional Trixie pleads for mercy or at least for you to not send the colt to the moon he's only a child and—-"

Chapter 2 originally had Celestia saying that Cadance had been born an Alicorn and that she hadn't known before Cadance's birth that ponies could be born as Alicorns. But sometime after Chapter 27 was posted, Chapter 2 was edited to say that Cadance had been born a Pegasus, ascending shortly after being born, and that Celestia hadn't known before that that normal ponies could become Alicorns, thus bringing the story into compliance with Parting Words, which, in Chapter 4, has Celestia say that she and Luna were born as Alicorns.

In an earlier version of Chapter 5, Rainbow Dash's dad was named Spectrum Blitz, and it was heavily implied that her mom had passed away. The author later revised the chapter so that Rainbow's dad was renamed Rainbow Blaze, and that Rainbow's mom (who isn't given a name in the chapter, but is otherwise suggested by her physical description to be Windy Whistles, Rainbow's mom in canon) was alive and present. Chapter 12 has also been slightly revised in this fashion.

Part of Twilight's Rage Against the Mentor in Parting Words involves calling Celestia out for not warning them that Discord could tamper with their minds. Here, a flashback shows that, in this continuity, Twilight solved his riddle, retrieved the Elements, and re-imprisoned him before he had a chance to demonstrate that. This left a Series Continuity Error until it was later revised to reveal Twilight was angry that she didn't get a warning that he could have done this.

Sheriff Brass' deputy's name is changed from Flute to Piccolo, presumably to keep him from being confused with the Nobody's Fool of the same name.

Rescue Romance: In this continuity, Starlight Glimmer's cult overthrew her without the Mane Six's intervention. They held her captive until Sunburst rescued her. By the time she comes to the Mane Six's attention, the two are engaged, living in the Crystal Empire, and working on magical research together.

Restraining Bolt: As part of his parole, Discord is made to wear a collar that greatly reduces his power. (As it turns out, this was at Applejack's insistence, before she'd agree to the whole parole idea.)

Revealing Cover-Up: Trixie's Alicorn Notice-Me-Not aura (augmented by her own illusions) is so thorough at disguising the traces of her passing that Sunset was able to track her by following the road that looked like it had never been used, ever, even when it went straight through a town.

Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: Celestia and Luna are on Team Enlightenment. They believe that the more they learn about magic, and the more they apply themselves and their reason, the better they can make life for everypony. Old age (i.e. senescence) is an illness that everyone except them is born with and a cure should be found for it like any other illness. Applejack is initially on Team Romanticism by voicing concerns about immortality not being "natural" and worrying about consequences of removing something that is "part of life". Luna argues that something being "natural" is not a good thing: disease, war, and greed are also "natural". The enlightenment angle is given a boost in this particular setting because the only natural landscape in Equestria is the Everfree Forest which is considered by everyone to be an Eldritch Locationbecause it is natural.

So Beautiful, It's a Curse: The other princesses feel this way about Fluttershy, who is now so beautiful that every straight colt around her has self-control issues, which might be potentially troublesome if affecting a large number at once.

No, it is not. Like its predecessor, bullying is portrayed realistically, via the introduction of Babs Seed's personal bullies. Babs even states something that any kid who's been bullied will relate to: telling the teacher doesn't work because either the teacher will ignore the issue or the punishment will be barely a smack on the wrist; plus bullies will wait until "no adults are looking. Or no adults are around. Or no adults who care are around."

We also find out that one of the reasons Twilight was so scared of being sent back to magic kindergarten in "Lesson Zero" was because she was bullied a lot as a young filly and it was giving her flashbacks. She's mostly over it by now, but it can still make her eye twitch.

Babs' bullies always got off Scot free due to having wealthy and influential families. Unfortunately for them, Babs is now technically royalty. They didn't realize that until after they tried to attack her AND the CMC and Bishi, three of whom are royalty, being immediate family of three princesses, and one practically being an apprentice to one. So not only did they get their flanks kicked, they also got on the bad side of the Princesses, shipped off to Sweet Apple Acres to do hard labor or not get fed, and cut off by their parents due to royal decree.

It's made very clear in Chapter 48 that the only reason the Mayor got a judge to give him an arrest warrant for the Nobody's Fools was because that judge was his cousin. Any other judge would have thrown the warrant out, since there wasn't a scrap of solid evidence behind it. Gold Star, the police commissioner, only cooperated with the plan because he knew that if he didn't, Fussbudget would have replaced him with somepony who would and made an even worse mess of things.

Sealed Evil in a Can: Malfunziona, a lesser cousin of Discord's who was basically an over-sized gremlin, was eventually sealed away by Bold Lion (an Expy of Leonardo da Vinci) in a statue of himself, only to get out centuries later during Applejack's group's visit to a Trade Expo where the statue is on display, and wreaks havoc. Until Apple Bloom figures out how to beat and re-imprison him.

Shaped Like Itself: Part of why Apple Bloom doesn't like the Cutie Mark she gets in her dream is that it was essentially "A Cutie Mark in crusading for Cutie Marks". She compares it to winning a pie eating contest only to find the prize was a free pie.

Shared Family Quirks: Fluttershy's parents and brother share her coat/mane colors, soft voice, and introverted demeanor. Like her, they are also surprisingly talented: her brother is highly skilled at martial arts, her father is a cloud sculptor/architect who developed the principles of cloud hydroponics, and her mother is a botanist/gardener in Cloudsdale with a fondness for exotic (and dangerous) plants. Yes, Fluttershy's mother grows plants on clouds.

Sharp-Dressed Man: Rarity's royal guard contingent, the "Radiant Guard" are some of the best dressed ponies in all of Equestria.

It turns out the reason why unicorns love mountains so much is because of Rincewind Arcology Syndrome, an overpowering nesting instinct that affects unicorns, particularly ones that specialize heavily in arcane research like Twilight. Basically, unicorns have a need to find a location to do all their magic in, fortify it, and build vertically. The higher the better. Twilight's observatory in Canterlot is an example, Canterlot itself is a second one, and even Carousel Boutique is a third example.

In Chapter 25, one of the bayou ponies borrows comedian Ron White's trademark line when he introduces himself: "They call me Tater Salad."

Brass rationalizing that he can chase Trixie and Jasper all over Tartarus' Half-Acre because his authority doesn't stop at Promise's town limit (despite the fact that it totally does) is similar to the logic of Sheriff Buford T. Justice from Smokey and the Bandit, and fails for the same reason (That part of the hot pursuit doctrine is so that police officers can stop criminals without getting caught up in jurisdictional red tape if someone commits a crime in one region and then immediately crosses the border to another. It is not a license to indefinitely extend one's jurisdiction so one can chase a suspect across half the country). He even uses a similar line on his deputy.

Flash Sentry: I— no, actually. I'm a soldier, your Highness... Contrary to what most ponies think, our job is to make sure the other guy dies for his country.

The "Why did you yell 'Fire' over [situation that is most decidedly not fire?"]/"Because no one would come if I yelled [actual situation]." is considered by some fans to be a Shout-Out to Reality Checks Nyx Verse. (Which is by the same author as this fic.)

In actual fact, this is a Shout-Out to a routine from The Smothers Brothers, called "Chocolate", in which Tommy describes yelling "Fire!" after falling into a vat of (what else?) chocolate. Cue the above exchange "Why'd you yell 'fire' when you fell into the chocolate?" / "Because no one would've come to save me if I'd just yelled CHOCOLATE!!!

Red Fort (Chapter 37) is a nod to the Engineer in Team Fortress 2, and even paraphrases part of his speech in the "Meet the Engineer" clip.

Dapper Blue's mannerisms and the way he describes his job is reminiscent of the Spy from Team Fortress 2.

Gred and Forge Weasel (Chapter 38) are patterned after twin brothers Fred and George Weasley in the Harry Potter series. There's even a brief mention of an older stallion with a fang earring - a shout-out to Bill, the oldest of the Weasley children. This one also mentions that he told his mother dragons were easier to work with than weasels, a nod to Charlie, the second-born Weasley child.

In Chapter 60, Twilight is able to finally drive off a large pack of Timberwolves by turning several trees into Whomping Willows.

Also in Chapter 38, Babs faces off against a giant monster that is entirely made of hair and sneakers, just like Gossamer, Marvin the Martian's henchmonster, from the original 1950s Duck Dodgers cartoons. That she fights it with a pair of scissors the size of a long sword points toward Kill la Kill.

The relationship between Cotton Mouth and Lord Malifec is similar to Quirrell and Lord Voldemort's in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, with a dark lord, obsessed with overcoming his fragility and mastering life and death, depending on a mortal assistant who's bonded with his master's life force. Cotton Mouth is ultimately more sympathetic than Quirrell though.

The zombies (eventually) assisting the heroes, and the spirit of one thanking Sweetie Belle, who set them free, is similar to the climax and resolution of Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island. Bonus points for also being set in a swamp, and Lord Malifec being a villain who has extended his longevity by absorbing the life force of innocent victims.

In Ch 43, Mach introduces himself with a variation of a few lines originally sung by Mok.

The Nobody's Fools like to do a scooter race called the Kessel run, the speed record for which is twelve minutes. Later, when pranking the protesters, they mess with the sound system to play "Cuban Pete".

The way Doctor Hospice provides Rainbow with information and references to help Scootaloo with her flightless problem is very similar to how Bob Parr can't help his clients.

The Nobody's Fools have a device they use for pranking called a Magic Mike.

In chapter 49, Mach One quotes Mal Reynolds' line of "I aim to misbehave."

Two of them in chapter 59. Apple Bloom's giant "Uber-Toaster" is patterned after Micro Chips' robot JVJ-24601 in the "Best in Show" shorts from the ''Equestria Girls'' Digital Series. When the leader of a pack of Diamond Dog pirates attacks Applejack, Apple Bloom delivers the "Get away from her, you bitch!" line from Aliens, only to have Applejack cut her off before she can say the last word.

Shown Their Work: The scouts yell 'Fire' when needing help, even if the emergency is way different. This is usual advice for self-protection; as the scouts say themselves, most people tend to run away or ignore calls for help, but pretty much everyone goes to take a look when hearing 'Fire'.

Sibling Team: Three out of the six princesses are this. With the exclusion of Twilight and Pinkie Pie, we have:

Rarity and (sister) Sweetie Belle

Applejack with (sister) Apple Bloom and (cousin) Babs Seed

Fluttershy and (brother) Bishi

And 'honorary sisters' Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo.

Skewed Priorities: When Pinkie's unusual earth pony magic is explained by Celestia and Luna, Twilight is (initially) more concerned with how the Pinkie Sense ultimately has a rational explanation than the obvious distress that talking about it is causing Pinkie Pie.

Sky Pirates: An airship filled with diamond dogs whose moutainous home offers little for them to mine.

The Smurfette Principle: Inverted. As of chapter 50, there are 18 Alicorns in Equestria (the Mane Six, Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Shining Armor, Sunset Shimmer, Necturus a.k.a. Mudpuppy, Trixie, Jasper, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Mach One), only three of whom are male. Luna would really like that gender inequality to be fixed, or at leeast improved soon. Especially considering one of the males is taken and the other two are underage (and the one of them closest to being of age seems likely to end up with Rainbow Dash).

Snake Oil Salesman: Years ago, a rather reckless experimental potioneer named Cotton Mouth visited the Neigh Orleans swamps to sell a tonic he claimed would improve the health of pregnant mares and their foals. Problem is, it didn't work nearly as well as he thought it would after he finished short term testing on a single test subject (himself), and so most of the foals were stillborn or had severe birth defects that led to their early deaths (Word of God specifically references Thalidomide). Only two of that entire group survived to the present day, one of whom did so by becoming an Alicorn while still in the womb, though nopony realized she was an Alicorn and not just another deformed filly until Rarity met her and discovered the truth. He's since kidnapped said Alicorn (And Sweetie Belle by accident) in order to study her to figure out how she survived and from there perfect the elixir.

It turns out that Cotton Mouth ran into similar problems to the ones with the original Snake Oil; a mistranslation turns it from what he claimed it was into a deadly poison.

Spanner in the Works: The alicorns and their friends/relatives are becoming this for whatever threat they run into— it seems that with more alicorns crawling out of the woodwork, they tend to upset or derail any antagonist's plans by a good margin.

Mayor Mare upon reading about the CMC's ascension in the paper. As well as a good number of other adults in Ponyville.

Gold Star does one when confronted with the sight of the Nobody's Fools as alicorns. (It turns out to be only a prank.)

Spoiled Sweet: Twilight in comparison to most students by virtue of being Celestia's personal pupil; it makes the idea of roughing it worthy of a mild panic attack.

Spontaneous Human Combustion: One pony took a medicine made from phoenix feathers. It cured all his health problems, but now he tends to burst into flames at random intervals. It's frequent enough that they usually keep him in a room with fire suppression sprinklers.

Rainbow Dash comes up with an easy way to use the magic mirrors to transfer information: hold a document up to the mirror so the recipient can read it. When Twilight asks about preserving and recording, Dash merely suggests a camera. Celestia and Luna quickly realize that her idea may prove useful in both military and civilian communications.

Celestia gives these rapid fire to Canterlot's panicking nobles, parliament, and heads of staff. Don't have enough guards? Introduce the recruits to on-the-job-training. Don't know how to manage six new princesses? Just do the same thing they did for Cadence; it wasn't that long ago. Not enough servants and staff members? Hire some more. Worried about paying for it all? Sell off part of the royal jewelry collection.

Stealth Hi/Bye: Jade Blossom, a member of Rarity's Radiant Guard, apparently does this all the time.

Stop Drowning and Stand Up: Downplayed when Rarity's horn drags her through the swamp and drops her into the dead center of a brackish pool. After only a moment of frantic thrashing and splashing she discovers, to her semi-relief, that the water only comes up to her withersnote top of her shoulderblades at the back of her neck.

Strawman U: Alicorn University, of the Berserkly variety. It is staffed, to a pony, by shallow, politically motivated, self-righteous and incompetent individuals who aren't presented as individuals but rather a uniform and collective entity. The students are generally considered to be exclusively trust-funded idiots who spend all their time protesting instead of studying. There's a large scene where the Nobody's Fools successively prank a group of pretentious hipsters.

Canterlot Castle's Western Solarium, to a lesser extent, when they trigger Shining Armor's ascension. Spike even comments that they've gotten better at containing the collateral damage (limited to a blown-out ceiling and a badly scorched floor).

Sweet and Sour Grapes: Due to her ascension to Alicornhood, Rainbow Dash cannot become a Wonderbolt. She can, however, command them... and since the titular hunt will be done undercover, she can fly with them as part of her cover story.

T

Tailor-Made Prison: Apple Bloom makes one for Malfunziona that counters his powers by way of a Logic Bomb. His powers are focused entirely around making machines break down. So she countered this by locking him inside a machine that is locked because it's broken, and any attempt to break it further will actually make it work better. Because using his powers to break the cage will also fix it, Malfunziona's powers cannot affect the cage.

Bold Lion had the same idea, with a canister with a screw-on lid that tightens whichever way you turn it. The reason it didn't last was because it was dented in a way that allowed Malfunziona to strip the threads.

The whole idea of a "wingboner" gets called out as a ridiculous myth spread by unicorns and Earth ponies. The idea of a unicorn's horn being "Sensitive" is called equally sillynote Later chapters state that Pegasus wings are sensitive, in the sense that they are a sensory organ - Pegasi wings are associated with the extra sense they use to track wind currents, which they need to use to be able to fly. But that doesn't make them a source of Fantastic Arousal any more than the average person's nose is.

Likewise, the Rule 34 idea that the lack of male Alicorns is due to the fact that they embody all three Pony races AND both genders is met with shock and disgust on Luna's part, with her outright questioning "What is wrong with ponies?!".

Chapter 6 has several towards a few of the more iconic moments in the series, such as the Winter Wrap Up (just letting the snow melt would probably be more beneficial), The Running of the Leaves (two ponies squabbling shouldn't be enough to prevent leaves from falling; wind would be more efficient and easier), Weather Factories (making individual snowflakes by hoof is remarkably inefficient, though ultimately it's kept as a means of employing Pegasi who are disabled), and draining the reservoir via tornado (evaporation would work just as well, with much less time, energy, and effort for all involved).

Chapter 45 tears into several iconic moments/places/rules/etc like hot knife through butter, courtesy of Mach One.

Winter Wrap-Up gets mentioned again, with Mach One questioning about disallowing unicorn magic just because the town was founded by Earth Ponies, with him reasoning that getting the job done should be the first priority.

Celestia's School Of Gifted Unicorns (and all gifted schools) is also not spared; Mach calls out how they were exclusively for unicorns. Given that one of Nobody's Fools is an Earth Pony studying unicorn magic (who couldn't get into one of these schools because none would accept anyone that aren't Unicorns) this is understandable.

Cloudsdale also gets mentioned; Mach points out that living in Cloudsdale is very impractical on account of having no farmlands to grow food and that they are totally dependent on importing food grown on land to survive, and that this had been going on as far back as before Equestria was founded.

With hindsight, Sunset Shimmer is able to ridicule how stupid her plan from Equestria Girls was, and blames it all on the hormones of the human teen body she was stuck in.

Malthus gets one in chapter 4 via having a pony counterpart who Luna dismisses as "an ignorant idiot, a misanthropist and a fool" who had predicted that Pony-kind should have starved to death eight hundred years ago.

In chapter 30, both Trixie and the Mane Six admit both sides made mistakes when first meeting Trixie, as she was being a show-off mostly because it was part of her job, something the others didn't consider at that time, and Trixie admitted she went too far with her bragging, making herself an unlikable pony in general.

Chapter 35 skewers "Crusaders of the Lost Mark", having it be a horrifying nightmare for Apple Bloom and giving Babs the giggles.

In Chapter 45, Mach One shows no mercy in his criticism of the story of Snowdrop, seeing it as evidence that Equestria's royalty and upper class are more interested in maintaining their own position than helping the less fortunate. Previously, his group also criticizes the Hipster attitude, making emphasis on their condescension, arrogance and hypocrisy.

Chapter 48 has a doctor at a Flightless Foal's Hospital, Hospice Care, deliver a brutal body slam to Political Correctness Gone Mad and "social justice warriors" while speaking to Rainbow Dash. Similarly, one of the Nobody's Fools tells his family off about constantly pushing him towards business, stating that the university was full of hipsters and PC warriors, and the professors were either slave drivers or delusional ex-hippies.

Chapter 51 has Rainbow Dash lecturing Alicorn Academy (the university mentioned above) for letting their standards fall so far that you can fail a class just because you don't slavishly agree with everything the professor says, it's against the rules to state certain opinions (and which ones those are change weekly), you get bilked out of tons of bits and then your money gets wasted no matter what you're paying for and that the school breeds ponies like the Social Justice Warriors spreading the attitude called out by Hospice Care in Chapter 48 and the Crownbreakers.

According to the author, Twilight's arc in Hollow Shades will be this to the Cthulhu Mythos, and Lovecraftian/Cosmic Horror works in general.

Taught by Experience: Spike and Owlowiscious took cover in the Library's basement as soon as Twilight received Star Swirl's notebook, and Spike started wearing a hard hat and taking his naps in the basement for good measure. A smart move, considering what happened.

And again, when Twilight and company cast the spell to trigger Shining Armor's ascension. This time, Spike puts on a helmet and sets up a sandbag bunker for protection.

Tears of Joy: Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash, the Nobody's Fools, and everyone around get these when Scootaloo ascends, gains her cutie mark, and manages to fly all in one moment. Even Harshwhinny is crying fit to bust.

That Came Out Wrong: In Chapter 32, Twilight is advising Flash on how to dress casually for their incognito visit to Hollow Shades, and says that he could just go without clothes, as he looks fine without them. She then realizes what that sounds like and backspaces immediately, blushing all the while. Her consternation is doubly amusing, seeing as how most ponies normally don't wear clothes anyway...

That's Gotta Hurt: Scootaloo and the Nobody's Fools share a moment of bonding by swapping tales of their crashes and ouching in sympathy at each others' stories.

They Called Me Mad!: It turns out this is Cotton Mouth's motivation behind his actions since he created the Vitality Elixir is to prove to other chemists that his potion is successful. It's gone downhill since then.

They Just Don't Get It: Rainbow Dash quickly realizes Pinkie doesn't understand the concept of having smaller separate parties instead of one giant one to celebrate all the fillies getting their cutie marks, Scootaloo's first flight, and everyone's ascensions all at the same time.

Think Unsexy Thoughts: Whenever she sees an attractive stallion, Luna reminds herself of the vow she took that she must wait for an immortal stallion before she can get laid. It is taken to funny extremes when seeing the Bouncer Brigade (Pinkie's guards) drives her to take three cold showers and eat the ripples out of two tubs of fudge ripple ice cream.

This Is Unforgivable!: Pinkie is utterly horrified upon learning that Fussbudget once gave Mach One a papier-mâché prop instead of an actual cake for his birthday party, and ominously swears that she will inflict some unspecified punishment upon him for this violation of party ethics. She later re-creates the prop cake and forces Fussbudget to eat every bite.

Took a Level in Kindness: Iron Will. After his incident with Fluttershy, he came to realize the ideal of "strength with focus", eventually opening up a martial arts studio with the mottoes "You don't need to step on somepony to stand up for yourself" and "Meekness isn't weakness; it's strength that's under control". Fluttershy's brother Bishi is one of his best students.

In spite of halting her "cryptic mentor" tendencies with Twilight Sparkle, Celestia still tends to be enigmatic and manipulative with a few things. After a couple thousand years, it's become a habit. This includes selecting a host of male guards for Twilight and Fluttershy in hopes that they find their 'super special somepony'. It also includes not fully briefing the Wonderbolts on their 'true' mission with Rainbow Dash to return them to the proper military force they once were before complacency set in. This is also a major factor in why Sunset Shimmer fell, as she saw Celestia much like Twilight did in the beginning of Parting Words, and hated being manipulated. Applejack suspects the reason her guard is such an eclectic collection of species is because Celestia is trying ease her out of any unintentional bigotry she might have but it is also implied that she was trying to show Applejack that she didn't have to act like a Manehatten socialite just because she had become a princess (something that Apple Bloom is in full agreement with).

In Chapter 31, Celestia gets tired of being on the receiving end of this trope with respect to the mystery box, the Tree of Harmony, and whoever made them. She decides that rather than wait for the Mane Six to pass whatever Secret Test of Character the box represents, she'll simply find another way in - and she hires Daring Do for the job.

U-V

Überwald: Hollow Shades and surroundings. The forest is full of Undead and Timberwolves, there's an Eldritch Abomination sleeping in the lake, and everyone builds their houses out of Oak and Cold Iron to keep the beasties out. Ponies are warned not to go out after dark - and it's always dark in Hollow Shades. The crew that works the dock is made up of Deep Ones too.

"But more to the point, dear Twilight, he's a baby DRAGON. He's magic resistant, has scales like armor plating, can bite through diamonds, wade through molten rock and breathes fire. You really do underestimate him."

And toward Spike himself:

"Spike, listen to me. I know you've spent your life being as careful as you can be to not hurt others. But over the centuries I've heard some of the legends coming out of Hollow Shades myself, and I am asking you— no, telling you— if you or Twilight are in danger, do not hold back."

Apple Bloom is underestimated by Malfunziona for being a small, non-cutie marked earth pony. It doesn't end nicely for him.

When Gold Star wonders why the Crownbreakers have started acting up, Dash suspects a political version of this trope is in play: she doesn't have an elder alicorn watching her back like Twilight and Pinkie, Rarity's connections, or Fluttershy's looks. Add to that the stigma of the Jerk Jock stereotype, and she looks like an easy target for a smear campaign, right? By the end of the Windy City arc, she's helped thwart a terrorist attack, begun overturning Mayor Fussbudget's inane laws, lit a fire under the Alicorn Academy's collective ass to begin reforming it's equally inane policies, and quickly becomes Windy City's favorite new alicorn.

Unflinching Walk: After an alchemist fails to heed Apple Bloom's warnings about a potion being made improperly, Apple Bloom turns and walks away, even counting down to the inevitable (non-lethal) explosion. She doesn't even look back when the explosion happens.

Uniqueness Decay: For close to a thousand years, there was only one Alicorn in Equestria. By the start of the story, they were up to three. By chapter 50, there are eighteen, and that number could still be growing. Celestia and Luna have explicitly stated that they consider this to be a good thing because it will enable them to have closer relationships with others.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack are still learning the basics of unicorn magic, but they can perform quite impressive feats of raw power, specially with the right motivation.

Really, this applies to most of the Mane 6 when it comes to magic, given that only two of them started out as unicorns, and of those two, only Twilight has made a dedicated study of magic (Rarity only knowing the basics). That being said, the fact that they're alicorns means that what little magic they do have is insanely powerful (case in point: Fluttershy's Stare originally didn't work on Discord; once she's ascended, it blows out his eyes and leaves him with an Ash Face, cowing him rather neatly).

Unnaturally Looping Location: In chapter 54, Pinkie Pie is furious at soon-to-be ex-Mayor Fussbudget for giving Mach One a papier-mache cake instead of a real birthday cake. So she decides to recreate the papier-mache birthday cake and force-feed it to Fussbudget. When he tries to escape, Pinkie Pie invokes this trope by warping his escape routes to bring him right back where he started so that he can't escape his punishment.

Ventriloquism: Apparently one of the many things the CMC attempted. Sweetie Belle uses it to direct joke-seeking tomatoes at a lich and a mad scientist.

Flute of the Nobody's Fools is mute, but can magically play music and sound effects from his horn. Sweetie Belle figures out a way for him to speak by using this talent.

Vocal Dissonance: Jade Blossom, one of Rarity's Radiant Guard. Neighponese descent, coloration and angled features to show for it, has the air of an exotic kunoichi - and a heavy Appleloosan accent that she loves to use to completely destroy that mystique.

W-Z

Walking Techbane: Malfunziona is a lesser draconequus who gains power from the chaos caused by failing technology. While he's weakened, he resorts to active physical sabotage until he has enough power to automatically cause technology to fail around him.

Presto, an Earth Pony, has a magic-themed cutie mark; while he can't perform even the most basic unicorn spells by his own, his technical knowledge and ingenuity allows him to create potions to replicate spells on an academically-trained unicorn level. Twilight intends to put him in contact with Sunburst, a magical researcher who has this trope apply to him despite being a unicorn himself.

Crackerjack is a unicorn colt with a fighting cutie mark. Most fight instructors wouldn't touch him because "Unicorns are weak". He is, none the less, a scrappy and capable fighter.

What the Hell, Hero?: After having had enough of the Wonderbolts giving her the cold shoulder and badmouthing her behind her back, Rainbow Dash confronts Spitfire about it. When the latter says that Dash is a show off who hasn't earned anything she has, Dash snaps and gives her a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech, pointing out how hard she worked to earn everything she has, not to mention has saved the world several times, whereas the Wonderbolts are either no-shows or ineffective in a crisis, and Spitfire herself is as guilty of being self-absorbed as she accused Rainbow Dash of being. Spitfire admits Rainbow Dash is right, and they make amends, with Spitfire helping Dash mend fences with the other Wonderbolts.

"Where? Where?": Several weeks (or even months) after ascending, Rainbow Dash still looks around for somepony else when she's addressed as "Princess". The gryphon prince Ajax tells her he does the same thing whenever he hears "Your majesty".

Who Wants to Live Forever?: Or rather, who wants to live alone forever? Celestia and Luna have no problems being immortal, but having to watch, again and again, the ponies close to them grow old, feeble and die after such a short time together is truly heartbreaking for them. This is what kicks off the main plot of the story — to find more Alicorns and eventually find a way to pass the gift of immortality on to everypony.

When Mach seems hesitant to ascend, Rainbow Dash asks if he believes in this trope, directly quoting it and even calling him an emo for it. He tells her to give him more credit; he's actually thinking of more immediate problems.

Winds of Destiny, Change: It turns out that Pinkie Pie's unusual abilities are due to an innate ability to perceive and manipulate probability. It's a extremely rare variation of Earth Pony magic, unfortunately they're most commonly known as "Ill-Starred" and thought to be jinxed. Celestia and Luna have learned it, and Luna gets the unfortunate job of mentoring Pinkie. Celestia, who was left behind with the nobles, is debating who actually drew the short straw.

After Rarity discovers how the Element of Generosity works for her - allowing her to look at a pony and let her magic guide her to exactly what they need at that moment - she has fun testing it out here and there. The first things she intentionally procures? A tissue and a piece of gum, a bit coin, a book, a hard kick in the pants (for Prince Blueblood), and a raid on the airship's wet bar (for herself).

Thinking about all the great things he could do for his friends and others like them gets Mach on board with the princesses' plan.

Wolves Always Howl at the Moon: Played with. Timberwolves howl at lightning, which means that they howl exclusively during storms - and end up gargling through a mouthful of rainwater. Woodcutter the timberjack hasn't found any of them drowned yet, but he figures it's just a matter of time because they're not too bright.

Cotton Mouth, the Snake Oil Salesman who peddled a poisonous health tonic in the swamps around Neigh Orleans years ago, leading to a rash of dead and severely deformed foal births. He returns in Chapter 40 to kidnap Mudpuppy and Sweetie Belle, using an army of kappas and zombies under his control, and it's strongly implied that he bred the hinkypunks that bit and nearly killed Sweet Peach and other foals in Neigh Orleans. Chapter 41 reveals that he's actually working for the monsters' real breeder, and he honestly didn't know his elixir was flawed when he gave it to the mares. But he still proves himself capable of purposely hurting children when he rips out some of Mudpuppy's feathers to keep her from escaping.

The Crownbreaker infiltrators at the Thunderdome have no qualms about setting bombs to disintegrate the whole facility and potentially drop all the non-Pegasi - and the crippled foals attending at Rainbow Dash's invitation - to their deaths.

Scootaloo's arc with the Nobody's Fools really puts forward the point that disabilities and shortcomings are not things to be "normalized", they are things to be healed.

Rainbow Dash's lecture of the staff of Alicorn Academy smacks down the anvil that colleges are meant to educate their students and open their minds, not bilk them out of money and then try to mold them into sycophants that just parrot ideology or turn around and try to smash down anyone who doesn't think just like them.

Wronski Feint: Chased by bullies, Scootaloo finds an updraft. Her glider's much larger wings catch the air better than the bullies' wings, sending her hurtling up fast while the bullies continue going forward and crash into a dumpster.

You Need to Get Laid: The reason Luna asks the Mane Six to try finding Alicorn stallions? She's really tense from not getting any action for 1500 years.

Younger Than They Look: Mach, much to Rainbow Dash's horror and shock (and our amusement) after she tried flirting with him. This later happens again with Luna after Mach's ascension.

Your Head Asplode: How Dapper Blue, one of Rarity's Radiant Guard, deals with a kappa terrorizing a couple of passing ponies (one of whom is in labor). He stuffs an exploding chili pepper (a result of crossbreeding with poison joke) into a cucumber and lets the kappa eat it, causing an explosion that blows its head to pieces.

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